Figures
Worker females guarding the nest entrance of a honeybee colony.
Each colony has thousands of female workers, one queen, and a few hundred males (drones). This strong sex bias relies on an unusual sex determination system. Gempe et al. (e1000222) show key functions for the regulation of two genes: csd, which establishes the decision between males and females by allelic combination, and fem, which memorizes the sexual decision by a positive regulatory feedback loop that operates throughout development.
Image Credit: Björn Schmitt, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Citation: (2009) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 7(10) October 2009. PLoS Biol 7(10): ev07.i10. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v07.i10
Published: October 27, 2009
Copyright: © 2009 Björn Schmitt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Each colony has thousands of female workers, one queen, and a few hundred males (drones). This strong sex bias relies on an unusual sex determination system. Gempe et al. (e1000222) show key functions for the regulation of two genes: csd, which establishes the decision between males and females by allelic combination, and fem, which memorizes the sexual decision by a positive regulatory feedback loop that operates throughout development.
Image Credit: Björn Schmitt, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf