The ecological cost of sex
The ecological cost of sex
Why sex prevails in nature remains one of the great puzzles of evolution. Sexual reproduction has an immediate cost relative to asexual reproduction, as males only express their contribution to population growth through females. With no males to sustain, an asexual mutant can double its relative representation in the population in successive generations. This is the widely accepted 'twofold cost of males'. Many studies have attempted to explain how sex can recoup this cost from fitness benefits associated with the recombination of parental genotypes, but these require complex biological environments that cycle over evolutionary timescales. In contrast, we have considered the ecological dynamics that govern asexual invasion. Here we show the existence of a threshold growth rate for the sexual population, above which the invasion is halted by intraspecific competition. The asexual population then exerts a weaker inhibitory effect on the carrying capacity of the sexual population than on its own carrying capacity. The stable outcome of this is coexistence on a depleted resource base. Under these ecological circumstances, longer-term benefits of sex may eventually drive out the asexual competitor.
281-285
Doncaster, C. Patrick
0eff2f42-fa0a-4e35-b6ac-475ad3482047
Pound, Graeme E.
84b1c8d4-20d8-4f47-b72b-12075cce1108
Cox, Simon J.
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16 March 2000
Doncaster, C. Patrick
0eff2f42-fa0a-4e35-b6ac-475ad3482047
Pound, Graeme E.
84b1c8d4-20d8-4f47-b72b-12075cce1108
Cox, Simon J.
0e62aaed-24ad-4a74-b996-f606e40e5c55
Doncaster, C. Patrick, Pound, Graeme E. and Cox, Simon J.
(2000)
The ecological cost of sex.
Nature, 404 (6775), .
(doi:10.1038/35005078).
Abstract
Why sex prevails in nature remains one of the great puzzles of evolution. Sexual reproduction has an immediate cost relative to asexual reproduction, as males only express their contribution to population growth through females. With no males to sustain, an asexual mutant can double its relative representation in the population in successive generations. This is the widely accepted 'twofold cost of males'. Many studies have attempted to explain how sex can recoup this cost from fitness benefits associated with the recombination of parental genotypes, but these require complex biological environments that cycle over evolutionary timescales. In contrast, we have considered the ecological dynamics that govern asexual invasion. Here we show the existence of a threshold growth rate for the sexual population, above which the invasion is halted by intraspecific competition. The asexual population then exerts a weaker inhibitory effect on the carrying capacity of the sexual population than on its own carrying capacity. The stable outcome of this is coexistence on a depleted resource base. Under these ecological circumstances, longer-term benefits of sex may eventually drive out the asexual competitor.
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Published date: 16 March 2000
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Local EPrints ID: 66496
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/66496
ISSN: 0028-0836
PURE UUID: a7f153b3-200f-4be3-8b70-92f46b3dfd72
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Date deposited: 24 Jun 2009
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:38
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Author:
Graeme E. Pound
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