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Transitions from sexual to asexual reproduction are often coupled with elevations in ploidy. As a consequence the importance of ploidy per se for the maintenance and spread of asexual populations is unclear. To examine the effects of ploidy and asexual reproduction as independent determinants of the success of asexual lineages we sampled diploid sexual diploid asexual and triploid asexual Eucypris virens ostracods across a European wide range. Applying nuclear and mitochondrial markers we found that E. virens consists of genetically highly differentiated diploid sexual populations to the extent that these sexual clades could be considered as cryptic species. All sexual populations were found in southern Europe and North Africa and we found that both diploid asexual and triploid asexual lineages have originated multiple times from several sexual lineages. Therefore the asexual lineages show a wide variety of genetic backgrounds and very strong population genetic structure across the wide geographic range. Finally we found that triploid but not diploid asexual clones dominate habitats in northern Europe. The limited distribution of diploid asexual lineages despite their shared ancestry with triploid asexual lineages strongly suggests that the wider geographic distribution of triploids is due to elevated ploidy rather than to asexuality.

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