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HIGHER FITNESS. "The genetic data we present here, along with our previous work demonstrating higher fitness for sexual reproduction and developmental constraints on asexual reproduction, suggest that returning to an asexual mode of reproduction is improbable although there appears to be genetic variation in ability to reproduce sexually or asexually." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

HARD TO GO BACK. "The evolution of sex itself may limit the ability of an organism to evolve parthenogenesis secondarily. Rather than asexual reproduction being at a competitive ecological disadvantage, constraints resulting from the evolution of meiosis and subsequent associated changes may place important limitations on the ability of an organism to return to an asexual mode of reproduction once sex has evolved." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

OPTIONAL VIRGIN BIRTHS. "Facultatively parthenogenetic species of animals do exist and such organisms could provide tests of hypotheses related to constraints on asexual reproduction." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

"THE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGIN of sex can differ from the evolutionary maintenance of sex and different factors may help maintain sex than lead to its evolution. The evolutionary return to asexual reproduction from a sexual ancestor requires a number of simultaneous changes: eggs may not mature until stimulated by mating, eggs may not develop without stimulation by sperm, and diploidy must be restored unless meiosis is suppressed." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

DIPLOID EGGS. "Only females that have a high level of heterozygosity are capable of parthenogenetic reproduction and there is a strong familial influence on the ability to reproduce parthenogenetically. Although the mechanism by which genetic variation facilitates asexual reproduction is unknown, we suggest that heterosis may facilitate the switch from producing haploid meiotic eggs to diploid, essentially mitotic, eggs." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

COCKROACH CLONES. "We investigate the role of genetic factors in limiting asexual reproduction in Nauphoeta cinerea, an African cockroach with facultative parthenogenesis that nearly always reproduces sexually. We show that when N. cinerea females do reproduce asexually, offspring are genetically identical to their mothers. However, asexual reproduction is limited to a nonrandom subset of the genotypes in the population." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

ENTIRELY HAPLOID FEMALE MITES. "We used fluorescence microscopy and variation at nine microsatellite loci to show that the false spider mite, Brevipalpus phoenicis, consists of haploid female parthenogens. We show that this reproductive anomaly is caused by infection by an undescribed endosymbiotic bacterium, which results in feminization of haploid genetic males." https://lnkd.in/gYgazXK View in LinkedIn

ROOTING CHANGES. "The annual plant, Abutilon theophrasti, shows a differential response towards the presence of a competitor and heterogeneous resource distributions. Plants sensing neighbours and grown in uniform soil nutrient distributions exhibited reductions in rooting." https://lnkd.in/d_tsqB7 View in LinkedIn

DIPLOID DOMINANCE. "The dominance of the diploid state in higher organisms, with haploidy generally confined to the gametic phase, has led to the perception that diploidy is favored by selection. This view is highlighted by the fact that no known female organism within the Metazoa exists exclusively (or even for a prolonged period) in a haploid state." https://lnkd.in/gYgazXK View in LinkedIn

POT SHARING. "Previous studies of root allocation responses to neighbours have found that plants in shared pots also had reduced fitness, indicating a cost to increased root allocation." http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/4/435.short View in LinkedIn