Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Evolutionary biology

Males from Mars

Nature volume 435, pages 1167–1168 (2005)Cite this article

In an ant species — or is it two species? — females are produced only by females and males only by males. Explanations of this revelation have to invoke some decidedly offbeat patterns of natural selection.

That men and women sometimes seem like different species is the stock in trade of pop psychologists and relationship gurus. Some go even farther: men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But in reality, human sexual differences are rather small. Even a naturalist freshly arrived from Mars or Venus would have little trouble binning specimens of men with women, and not with female chimpanzees or gorillas. There are species where males and females are different enough to have fooled real earthly naturalists. But no population geneticist would be misled — males and females mix their genes in their progeny, and as a result male and female genes comprise a common, well-mixed pool. A fascinating exception to this rule is described by Fournier et al. (Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant)1. Males and females each reproduce clonally and, like independent species, follow separate evolutionary branches.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Reproduction in Wasmannia auropunctata.
Figure 2: Female castes.

CHRISTIAN KÖNIG

References

  1. Fournier, D. et al. Nature 435, 1230–1234 (2005).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Lowe, S., Browne, M., Boudjelas, S. & De Poorter, M. 100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species: A Selection from the Global Invasive Species Database (Invasive Species Specialist Group/IUCN, 2004); http://www.issg.org/booklet.pdf

    Google Scholar 

  3. Pearcy, M., Aron, S., Doums, C. & Keller, L. Science 306, 1780–1783 (2004).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Bourke, A. F. G. & Franks, N. R. Social Evolution in Ants (Princeton Univ. Press, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Queller, D. C. & Strassmann, J. E. Bioscience 48, 165–175 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Haig, D. J. Theor. Biol. 156, 401–403 (1992).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Queller, D. C. BMC Evol. Biol. 3, 15 (2003).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, PO Box 1892, Houston, 77251-1892, Texas, USA

    David Queller

Authors
  1. David Queller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Queller, D. Males from Mars. Nature 435, 1167–1168 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/4351167a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4351167a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing