Why Sex? and Why only in Pairs?∗

نویسندگان

  • Motty Perry
  • Philip J. Reny
  • Arthur J. Robson
چکیده

No single question has been more central to our understanding of sex than the question of why a species reproduces sexually when asexual reproduction avoids the twofold cost of males. Surprisingly, an equally fundamental question has received virtually no attention at all. That is, why are there no triparental species in which an offspring is composed of the genetic material of three individuals? Answering this question can have a substantive impact upon our understanding of sex. We show that Kondrashov’s (1982) mutational deterministic hypothesis fails to answer this question because it implies that triparental sex always dominates biparental sex, so the former — not the latter — should be observed. By way of contrast, we offer a simplified Red Queen model in which biparental sex is never dominated by triparental sex, quadriparental sex, etc. ∗ We thank Elizabeth Elle and Dan Weil for very helpful discussions, and Dagan Eshar for expert Matlab advice. We gratefuly acknowledge financial support as follows: Perry, from the Israel Science Foundation (0321548); Reny, from the National Science Foundation (SBR9709392, SES-9905599); and Robson, from the Canada Research Chairs Program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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تاریخ انتشار 2006