Key Points
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Theory predicts that sex can be advantageous because it reduces the mutational load of a population, increases the efficiency by which different beneficial mutations are combined in the same genome, and reduces the degree to which selection on genetic backgrounds interferes with both the recruitment of new beneficial mutations and the purging of new, harmful mutations.
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Experiments provide support for the idea that the genome-wide mutation rate is sufficient in many, but not all, species to make the load-reducing effect of recombination highly favourable, but the mechanism by which this occurs is still unresolved.
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No experiments have directly tested the idea that recombination speeds the rate at which new beneficial mutations are combined into the same genome, but related experiments concerning interference between beneficial mutations that are located in different clonal genomes do indicate an advantage to recombination.
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Only one experiment has directly tested whether recombination slows the rate of accumulation of harmful mutations (retrogressive evolution), but this experiment showed a strong advantage to recombination.
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Many experiments have tested the idea that recombination speeds the rate of accumulation of beneficial mutations (progressive evolution), and, on balance, these studies provide strong support for a substantial advantage to recombination.
Abstract
Numerous theories have been proposed to explain the advantages of sexual recombination — the exchange of hereditary material between different genomes or homologous chromosomes. Many of these candidate benefits have been evaluated in controlled laboratory experiments, which, collectively, strongly indicate that sexual recombination provides important long-term advantages.
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Glossary
- BDELLOID ROTIFERS
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Microscopic organisms that seem to have experienced a period of evolution without sex, and probably without other forms of recombination, for more than 80 million years.
- MUTATIONAL LOAD
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The fitness reduction of a population owing to accumulated deleterious mutations in the gene pool.
- ANTAGONISTIC COEVOLUTION
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A cycle of adaptation and counter-adaptation between males and females of the same species or between a species and its enemies.
- SEXUALLY ANTAGONISTIC FITNESS VARIATION
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Variation in polymorphic genes that increase the fitness of one sex but decrease the fitness of the other sex.
- REQUISITE MUTATIONAL LOAD
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The excess in the net reproductive rate of the fittest class, above exact replacement, that is required to prevent open-ended mutation accumulation.
- SEXUAL SELECTION
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Competition among members of one sex (generally males) for fertilization opportunities with the other sex.
- FIXATION
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The accumulation of a mutation to a frequency of 100% in a gene pool.
- CLONAL INTERFERENCE
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The reduced competitive advantage of a clone that carries a beneficial mutation owing to the simultaneous presence of one or more other clones that carry different beneficial mutations.
- DIRECT SELECTION
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Darwinian selection on a specific mutation.
- MULLER'S RATCHET
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Recurrent stochastic loss of the fittest genomes in an asexual population.
- CENSUS SIZE
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The total number of individuals in a population.
- SELECTIVE SWEEP
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The gradual accumulation to fixation of a genome or chromosomal region that has a net selective advantage.
- EFFECTIVE POPULATION SIZE
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The equivalent number of breeding adults in a population after adjusting for complicating factors such as nonrandom variation in family size or stochastic fluctuation in population size.
- HERITABILITY
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The fraction of the phenotypic variance that is attributable to additive genetic variance
- GENE CONVERSION
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The non-reciprocal transfer of genetic information between homologous genes (as a consequence of mismatch repair after heteroduplex formation).
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Rice, W. Experimental tests of the adaptive significance of sexual recombination. Nat Rev Genet 3, 241–251 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg760
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg760
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