In collaboration with colleagues from international partner institutions, researchers at the University of Cologne have investigated the asexual reproduction of oribatid mites using genome ...

While humans too have two sets of chromosomes, there is something different when it comes to oribatid mites. The asexual oribatid mite Platynothrus peltifer reproduces parthenogenetically ...

Yet, the oribatid mite Platynothrus peltifer challenges this paradigm: It has existed for over 20 million years—entirely without sex. The asexual oribatid mites produce their female offspring ...

In the oribatid mite, the two copies of the chromosome sets evolve independently of each other, allowing new genetic variants to emerge while also retaining important information. The team ...