Promiscuous female fruit flies with high sex drives are key to preventing extinction of its male species, a study shows.
Flies in the northern parts of the US are more inclined to have multiple partners in order to reduce the occurrence of an X chromosome which causes the production of only female offspring.
With a view to replicating itself, SGE (selfish genetic element) genes, found in large numbers in many organisms, kill the sperm that carry the Y chromosome and the males with SGE produce fewer sperm.
Female fruit flies take advantage of this weakness by having several mates, increasing the chances that SGE-free males, with a higher sperm count, will father their offspring, said the study.
Female fruit flies have found a mechanism to limit the impact of SGE, said Thomas Price from the University of Liverpool in Britain.
The researchers proved a correlation between the number of mates and the prevalence of the SGE genes by collecting samples of fruit flies from seven sites in the US.
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"If this particular SGE was to spread to every male in a population, then no more males would be born, and the population, or even the whole species, would become extinct," Price noted.
Females with a high sex drive and males with a high sperm count are keeping this species going, he added.