Sex is hard to explain," writes Michael Brothurst in a recent article
in the journal Science. Like others in his field, Brothurst, who
studies the evolution of sexual reproduction at the University of
Liverpool, doesn't "get" men.
"Since males can't reproduce by
themselves and often contribute nothing except genes to their offspring,
a population of asexual females can grow at double the rate of a
population that reproduces sexually," he writes.
Why, then, do
males exist at all? Why do most plants and animals have two sexes — that
is, two sexes who have sex with each other — instead of just one?
The
most likely explanation is known as the Red Queen hypothesis, named
after the monarch in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass." In
that novella, Alice and the Red Queen hold a race in which they run in
place but never get anywhere. Somewhat analogously, the Red Queen
hypothesis holds that organisms and the parasites that live on them are
running a race in which they constantly evolve in response to each
other's genetic mutations , maintaining an overall balance.
As
parasites evolve to take advantage of the weaknesses of a typical host
organism, Brothurst explains, host organisms with rare versions of
genes, known as alleles, are less susceptible to the parasites, and so
stand a better chance of surviving to their reproductive age; likewise,
their offspring are endowed with these advantageous alleles. As a
result, over generations these organisms' rare alleles become more
common in the population, so parasites start evolving to take them on.
At that point new unusual alleles begin to flourish among the hosts.
Sex,
the theory holds, gives host organisms a leg-up on this evolutionary
treadmill. "This continual selection for rarity favors sexual
reproduction over asexual reproduction; sexual recombination allows
hosts to reshuffle their pack of alleles and generate new, rare
combinations in their offspring," Brothurst writes.
Evidence in
favor of the Red Queen hypothesis comes from many walks of life. Among
freshwater snails that can reproduce both sexually or asexually, more
males (and thus more sexual reproduction) occur in shallow areas where
the snails are more likely to get infected by flukes, a type of
parasite. In Brothurst's words, "This suggests that infection promotes
sex."
However, up until now, researchers didn't know for sure
whether flukes (to use the previous example) are actually best adapted
to their snail hosts. Maybe the two species haven't been coevolving at
all, in which case the very foundations of the Red Queen hypothesis
would crumble.
Levi Morran of Indiana University and his
colleagues have given the Red Queen theory a new boost. In the lab, the
researchers pitted roundworms against a species of bacteria that kills
them, and observed what happened as the two coevolved. Turns out,
roundworms that produced asexually were killed off in just 20
generations, while sexually reproducing worms were able to continually
evolve to fend off their bacterial attackers.
In a race to stay in the same place, it seems that sex is key
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