As described on my Unisexual Diversity page, I am curious how parthenogenetic vertebrate lineages retain and perhaps create diversity. Interestingly, my focal study species, Aspidoscelis tesselata, is a diploid hybrid with one set of chromosomes from each of two ‘parent’ species. I am currently investigating whether or not developing A. tesselata gametes are capable of crossing over between the two sets of chromosomes. This variety of crossing over is sometimes called homoeologous recombination, and is known to occur in several plant hybrids. Using a modification of Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization (FISH), I should be able to probe the A. tesselata genome for evidence of homoeologous recombination. I also intend to approach this question using sequence data from nuclear genomic subsampling (ddRADseq).
FISH using telomeric probes (red) and whiptail lizard chromosomes (Aspidoscelis neomexicana). Notice the large internal telomeric repeats near centromeres. Scale bar is 10 µm.