Traditional Genetic Algorithms (GA) use crossover and mutation as the main genetic operators to achieve population diversity. Previous work using a biologically inspired genetic operator called transposition, allowed the GA to reach better solutions by replacing the traditional crossover operators. In this paper we extend that work to the case of asexual reproduction. The GA efficiency was comp...

Asexual reproduction, including parthenogenesis in which embryos develop within a female without fertilization, is assumed to confer advantages over sexual reproduction, which includes a "cost of males." Sexual reproduction largely predominates in animals, however, indicating that this cost is outweighed by the genetic and/or ecological benefits of sexuality, including the acquisition of advant...

Genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) encode molecules that control immune recognition and are highly polymorphic in most vertebrates. The remarkable polymorphisms at MHC loci may be maintained by selection from parasites, sexual selection, or both. If asexual species show equal (or higher) levels of polymorphisms at MHC loci as sexual ones, this would mean that sexual selection i...

Understanding the mode of origin of asexuality is central to ongoing debates concerning the evolution and maintenance of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes. This is because it has profound consequences for patterns of genetic diversity and ecological adaptability of asexual lineages, hence on the outcome of competition with sexual relatives both in short and longer terms. Among the possible rout...

Population geneticists make a distinction between sexual and asexual organisms depending on whether individuals inherit genes from one or two parents. When individual genes are considered, this distinction becomes less satisfactory for multicellular sexual organisms. Individual genes pass through numerous asexual mitotic cell divisions in the germline prior to meiosis and sexual recombination. ...

Species of the genus Mastocarpus exhibit two distinct life cycles, a sexual alternation of generations and an obligate, asexual direct life cycle that produces only female upright fronds. In the intertidal red alga, M. papillatus (Kützing) sexual fronds dominate southern populations and asexual fronds dominate northern populations along the northeast Pacific coast, a pattern of spatial separati...

One of the major potential disadvantages to asexual reproduction is believed to be a reduction in phenotypic variability. This study represents an empirical test for such a reduction in the variance of physiological traits in parthenogenetic species of the lizard genus Cnemidophorus. Five performance traits (burst speed, endurance, maximal exertion, standard metabolic rate and evaporative water...