Asex and Evolution: A Very Large-Scale Overview
(2009) p.1-19- Abstract
- Asexuals come in all sorts. In this personal overview, I identify asexual organisms with eukaryotes that do not regularly go through the meiotic cycle. Such organisms may be asexual in many different ways and of many different reasons. The spread of asexuality is therefore always a unique process, and any notion of a general evolutionary advantage for asexuality is at best misleading. In discussions on the evolution of asexuality, ideas about genetic conflicts are often more helpful than notions about “costs”. Many asexuals are associated with different fitness problems, and most of them are not particularly good at being asexual either. Their absence of long-term evolutionary success follows from their lack of recombination, leading to... (More)
- Asexuals come in all sorts. In this personal overview, I identify asexual organisms with eukaryotes that do not regularly go through the meiotic cycle. Such organisms may be asexual in many different ways and of many different reasons. The spread of asexuality is therefore always a unique process, and any notion of a general evolutionary advantage for asexuality is at best misleading. In discussions on the evolution of asexuality, ideas about genetic conflicts are often more helpful than notions about “costs”. Many asexuals are associated with different fitness problems, and most of them are not particularly good at being asexual either. Their absence of long-term evolutionary success follows from their lack of recombination, leading to complex effects involving drift and selection that we are just beginning to understand. The interest in asexual organisms comes not from what they say about sex, but from what they say about living as a eukaryote. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1516685
- author
- Bengtsson, Bengt Olle LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2009
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- host publication
- Lost Sex
- editor
- Schön, Isa ; Martens, Koen and van Dijk, Peter
- pages
- 1 - 19
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:84919617721
- ISBN
- 978-90-481-2769-6
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-90-481-2770-2_1
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- acff3499-e7a6-4082-b480-70b0543d96ff (old id 1516685)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 10:12:25
- date last changed
- 2022-02-13 19:24:18
@inbook{acff3499-e7a6-4082-b480-70b0543d96ff,
abstract = {{Asexuals come in all sorts. In this personal overview, I identify asexual organisms with eukaryotes that do not regularly go through the meiotic cycle. Such organisms may be asexual in many different ways and of many different reasons. The spread of asexuality is therefore always a unique process, and any notion of a general evolutionary advantage for asexuality is at best misleading. In discussions on the evolution of asexuality, ideas about genetic conflicts are often more helpful than notions about “costs”. Many asexuals are associated with different fitness problems, and most of them are not particularly good at being asexual either. Their absence of long-term evolutionary success follows from their lack of recombination, leading to complex effects involving drift and selection that we are just beginning to understand. The interest in asexual organisms comes not from what they say about sex, but from what they say about living as a eukaryote.}},
author = {{Bengtsson, Bengt Olle}},
booktitle = {{Lost Sex}},
editor = {{Schön, Isa and Martens, Koen and van Dijk, Peter}},
isbn = {{978-90-481-2769-6}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{1--19}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
title = {{Asex and Evolution: A Very Large-Scale Overview}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2770-2_1}},
doi = {{10.1007/978-90-481-2770-2_1}},
year = {{2009}},
}