Year: 2022

COST-BENEFIT RATIO. "Most higher eukaryotes engage in sexual reproduction, at least part of the time." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.1516/full View in LinkedIn

BASIC DOGMAS. "For more than a century the basic tenets for the advantages of sexual reproduction have been that it can serve to (i) generate progeny with a diversity of novel genotypes and (ii) purge the genome of deleterious mutations, such as transposable elements, which otherwise would accumulate inexorably via Muller’s Ratchet to degrade the integrity of the genome." http://www.mycologia.org/content/105/1/1.full View in LinkedIn

"THE BENEFITS of eukaryotic meiotic sex are mostly discussed under the headings good, bad, and ugly: good, it generates genetic diversity in which rapid new combinations bring together beneficial mutations; bad, it purges the slow accumulation of slightly harmful mutations, i.e., it counters Muller’s ratchet; ugly, it is necessary for the arms race with rapidly changing parasites, the well-known Red Queen hypothesis." https://lnkd.in/deZ8DED View in LinkedIn

COMBINED ADVANTAGES. "In general, sex seems to allow superior responses to rapid challenges, both internal and external. Indeed, there is no consensus on a single major advantage for sex, and prevailing opinion is shifting toward a combination of advantages. That sex creates genetic variation, repairs DNA breaks, restores methylation patterns, and prevents accumulation of disadvantageous mutations is well accepted." https://lnkd.in/deZ8DED View in LinkedIn

SEX VS ASEXUALITY. "Many models explaining the advantage of sexual reproduction over asexuality have been proposed, including the purging of deleterious mutations, adaptation, host–parasite co-evolution, random genetic drift, and pluralistic models combining some or all of the above." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.1516/full View in LinkedIn

MIXED MODES. "Most of these models found that there was an advantage for a low frequency of sexual reproduction over complete asexuality. Very few models exist explaining the evolution and maintenance of obligate sexuality in comparison with facultative sex. In fact, according to most models, organisms that engage in sexual reproduction only part of the time seem to have the best of both worlds." https://lnkd.in/es2qrc5 View in LinkedIn

RETROTRANSPOSONS. "It has been hypothesized that asexual organisms lack mechanisms sufficient to keep retrotransposons proliferation under control, explaining why retrotransposons are missing from ancient (i.e., evolutionarily stable) asexuals." https://lnkd.in/deZ8DED View in LinkedIn

SELFISH GENES. "Retrotransposons appear to have greater significance than other transposons in their potential for deleterious effects on host fitness. Functional retrotransposon inserts produce transcripts that are silenced by genome defense proteins. So far, it has been documented that the genome may be protected against overpopulation of selfish elements in several ways." https://lnkd.in/dgGPYYe View in LinkedIn

SEXUAL SELECTION AND SELFISH GENES. "One aspect of sexual selection that Darwin was completely unaware of was the role of Selfish Genetic Elements (SGEs). SGEs are genes, organelles or microorganisms present within the genome or cell of an organism that spread through populations by subverting normal patterns of inheritance in ways that increase their representation in the next generation." https://lnkd.in/dN4U_8N View in LinkedIn

VIRALLY-DERIVED DNA AND SELECTION. "Here we discuss the pervasiveness and power of Selfish Genetic Elements as an agent of sexual selection and show they can have remarkably wide-ranging impacts on male and female reproduction and therefore in shaping mating systems, even when present at low frequencies." https://lnkd.in/dN4U_8N View in LinkedIn