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FACULTATIVE PARTHENOGENESIS. "Asexual reproduction could offer up to a two-fold fitness advantage over sexual reproduction, yet higher organisms usually reproduce sexually. Even in facultatively parthenogenetic species, where both sexual and asexual reproduction is sometimes possible, asexual reproduction is rare. Thus, the debate over the evolution of sex has focused on ecological and mutation-elimination advantages of sex." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

PLAN B. "Facultative parthenogenesis enables females to produce offspring by themselves, preventing reproductive failure when they do not find a mate before dying. Therefore, facultative parthenogenesis is likely to be advantageous in certain situations, even though it may be ultimately inferior to sexual reproduction in terms of long-term fitness." https://lnkd.in/gPAUsAH View in LinkedIn

SINGLE PARENTS. "Facultative parthenogenesis, or condition-dependent alternation of sexual and asexual reproduction, is widespread in animals. Parthenogenesis enables unmated females to reproduce and thus has a great adaptive significance, especially under low pairing efficiency. In the termite Reticulitermes speratus Kolbe, females that fail to pair with males found colonies cooperatively with partner females and reproduce parthenogenetically." https://lnkd.in/gPAUsAH View in LinkedIn

"FACULTATIVE PARTHENOGENESIS, switching between sexual and clonal reproduction, although quite common in invertebrates, e.g. Daphnia and aphids, seems to be even rarer in vertebrates. However, isolated cases of parthenogenetic development have been reported in all vertebrate groups. Facultative parthenogenesis in vertebrates has only been found in captive animals but might simply have been overlooked in natural populations." https://lnkd.in/geEs5eg View in LinkedIn

ROOT FAMILY CHATTER. "Kin recognition by the roots of Cycas edentata was recently demonstrated. Our extensive literature search revealed this to be the first report of kin recognition in any spermatophyte other than angiosperms. Based on this new validation that the phenomenon occurs among phylogenetically diverse taxa, we conclude that kin recognition by roots may be an ancient phenomenon." https://lnkd.in/gYpA3RF View in LinkedIn

VARIANT DEVELOPMENT. "Parthenogenesis occurs in a wide range of animal taxa and is produced by a variety of different underlying mechanisms. Parthenogenesis was not the ancestral state in the taxa where it occurs; at some point in their evolutionary histories, genetic variants must have arisen that (1) allowed impaternate development of embryos, and (2) were favored by existing ecological or demographic factors." http://www.g3journal.org/content/3/4/757.full View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend on the theme of plant kin recognition. Here we look at the root and leaf responses of plants to the presence of kin, and at ways plants can game the relationship game to their own advantage. All these studies reinforce the fact that plants are not just plastic cut-outs, but sophisticated sentient beings. View in LinkedIn

VIRGIN BIRTH IN FRUIT FLIES. "Of 40 Drosophila species screened to date, a majority have shown some ability to at least initiate parthenogenetic development. In one case, Drosophila mangebeirai, natural populations are entirely female, making it the only obligate parthenogenetic species of Drosophila. Only a few of the species that exhibit the ability to undergo early embryonic development of unfertilized eggs successfully respond to selection for parthenogenetic production of adult flies." https://lnkd.in/gPUGWFf View in LinkedIn

HAPOID CELL LINES. "In vertebrates, the first haploid cell lines were obtained more than 40 years ago from frogs. Despite this, the availability of isolated vertebrate haploid cell lines is limited. Mammalian (especially human) haploid cell lines are of particular interest, because genetic screening in mammalian cells is directly applicable to medicinal and pharmacological research." https://lnkd.in/gHK6Jfp View in LinkedIn

VIRGIN BIRTH OF FEMALES. "While male-producing parthenogenesis is rare, female-producing parthenogenesis is widespread among animals and mostly obligate, with many documented cases in species-rich invertebrate groups such as insects, nematodes and crustaceans, and with only few examples in vertebrates." https://lnkd.in/gvZ8CFZ View in LinkedIn