Why Asexual Reproduction?: Variation in Populations of the Parthenogenetic Wasp, Venturia canescens (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae)

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Abstract
The wing characters of a laboratory population and a wild population of the thelytokous parthenogenetic wasp, Venturia canescens (Gravenhorst), show a high degree of variability. Discriminant analysis can separate the wild and the laboratory populations with 99% accuracy. However, laboratory clone lines established from single females have so much intraclone variability that less than 50% of the individuals can be correctly identified by discriminant analysis to their proper clone line. This high degree of variability within a clone suggests that, in colonizing a new environment, a thelytokous female can flood the environment with copies each of which is different and not identical to another. The variable nature of the copies may confer the same selection benefits to the offspring as are enjoyed by bisexual species, and this variability, together with the lack of necessity of finding a mate, may explain the ability of some parthenogenetic animals to colonize new environments.

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