Polyploidy and host specificity genetics in Nasonia parasitoid wasps

Polyploidization is highly deleterious and hymenopterans with complementary sex determination (CSD) have problems of polyploidy-linked sterility. However, many eukaryotic lineages derived advantages from polyploidy, and most parasitoids including those used in biological control are non-CSD. By studying polyploid lines of non-CSD parasitoid N. vitripennis I determined that polyploid phenotypic variation has complex effects on potential evolutionary outcome and biocontrol performance. Furthermore, biocontrol agents without high host specificity exhibit non-target effects, but little is known about this trait’s genetics. By mapping molecular markers to host usage phenotypes in a line with specialist Nasonia giraulti gene regions introgressed into a generalist N. vitripennis background, I narrowed the Nasonia host preference 1 gene to a 4.1Mb genomic region enriched in odorant receptors.