"There is no layman's term for 'passes on an autocidal gene that kills offspring,'''' Alphey said.
"There is no layman's term for 'passes on an autocidal gene that kills offspring,' " Alphey said.
A company called Oxitec, for instance, has produced mosquitoes that carry a lethal gene that kills offspring in early development, which can drastically reduce mosquito populations.
Young men killing young men -- it really has a lot to do with the offspring not having enough to do.
The plateau offers protection from floods (good for offspring) but no shade (killing all offspring).
Take an animal that has a choice of nesting in a valley or a plateau; the valley offers shade from the sun (good for raising offspring) but vulnerability to floods (killing all offspring).
Some Rickettsia raise infected female fitness in an indirect way by manipulating host reproduction towards infected daughters at the expense of sons, either by killing male offspring as embryos (male-killing) or by inducing parthenogenesis [ 13, 65].
But one dominant female in each group monopolizes reproduction, in part by killing the offspring of subordinate females Over 80% of surviving young are her own.
In many cases such symbionts cause female-biased offspring sex ratio by several means: either transforming genetic males into females (feminization [ 6]), killing male offspring [ 7] or by inducing parthenogenesis [ 8].
