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Over the past three decades, a single individual bee has successfully created millions of clones of herself thanks to hitting a bizarre genetic jackpot.
This growing army of clones poses a serious risk to the hives of the African lowland honey bee, 10% of which are collapsing every year, as the colonies become filled with clones that consume their resources refuse to share in the work.
Scientists have described the bee's mechanism of reproduction as "incredible" and have traced the lineage back to a single worker bee that lived in 1990, according to research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
It was previously known that the subspecies of Cape honeybee was capable of creating a perfect copy of itself, but this poses serious issues for genetic diversity.
Many forms of social insects are able to reproduce asexually, creating female offspring from unfertilised eggs using two of four chromosomes replicated from their parents.
These chromosomes are reshuffled in the process, meaning that the next generation will be genetically distinct - but there is a limit to how many generations can be reproduced in this way.
news.sky.com
This growing army of clones poses a serious risk to the hives of the African lowland honey bee, 10% of which are collapsing every year, as the colonies become filled with clones that consume their resources refuse to share in the work.
Scientists have described the bee's mechanism of reproduction as "incredible" and have traced the lineage back to a single worker bee that lived in 1990, according to research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
It was previously known that the subspecies of Cape honeybee was capable of creating a perfect copy of itself, but this poses serious issues for genetic diversity.
Many forms of social insects are able to reproduce asexually, creating female offspring from unfertilised eggs using two of four chromosomes replicated from their parents.
These chromosomes are reshuffled in the process, meaning that the next generation will be genetically distinct - but there is a limit to how many generations can be reproduced in this way.
In 1990 a bee learned to clone herself - now her army of millions threaten other species
A subspecies of South African honey bee has been discovered to be comprised of millions of clones from a single individual.
news.sky.com
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