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Combining Behavioral Endocrinology and Experimental Economics: Testosterone and Social Decision Making
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Published on: March 2, 2011

On luck and sex.

Alistair Blachford1, Michael Doebeli

  • 1Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, BC, Canada. alistair@zoology.ubc.ca

Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution
|September 23, 2008
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Sexual reproduction can reduce the impact of unpredictable environmental challenges, or "luck," on offspring inheritance compared to asexual reproduction. This "noise dampening" may help explain the widespread prevalence of sex in nature.

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Published on: December 25, 2016

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Population Genetics

Background:

  • The ubiquity of sexual reproduction despite its significant costs remains an evolutionary puzzle.
  • Understanding the conditions favoring sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction is a key area of research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether sexual reproduction can mitigate the effects of individual-level ecological "luck" on inheritance.
  • To explore the role of interindividual reproduction in dampening genetic noise.

Main Methods:

  • Derivation of mathematical expressions for noise in inheritance.
  • Modeling ecological noise sources within a generation.
  • Analysis of conditions favoring noise dampening in sexual versus asexual reproduction, with a focus on plants.

Main Results:

  • Interindividual reproduction (sex) can dampen ecological noise more effectively than asexual reproduction under certain conditions.
  • The effectiveness of noise dampening depends on specific ecological and life-history factors.
  • Empirical and theoretical plant data support the noise dampening hypothesis.

Conclusions:

  • Ecological noise dampening is a potential benefit of sexual reproduction, operating alongside recombination and segregation.
  • This benefit may offset some of the inherent costs of sex.
  • The balance between selfing and outcrossing in natural populations might be influenced by the level of habitat-specific ecological noise.