Linked Life Data

16856849

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/16856849

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
Pt 4
pubmed:dateCreated
2006-7-21
pubmed:abstractText
One of the greatest puzzles in evolutionary biology is the high frequency of sexual reproduction and recombination. Given that individuals surviving to reproductive age have genomes that function in their current environment, why should they risk shuffling their genes with those of another individual? Mathematical models are especially important in developing predictions about when sex and recombination can evolve, because it is difficult to intuit the outcome of evolution with several interacting genes. Interestingly, theoretical analyses have shown that it is often quite difficult to identify conditions that favour the evolution of high rates of sex and recombination. For example, fitness interactions among genes (epistasis) can favour sex and recombination but only if such interactions are negative, relatively weak and not highly variable. One reason why an answer to the paradox of sex has been so elusive is that our models have focused unduly on populations that are infinite in size, unstructured and isolated from other species. Yet most verbal theories for sex and recombination consider a finite number of genotypes evolving in a biologically and/or physically complex world. Here, we review various hypotheses for why sex and recombination are so prevalent and discuss theoretical results indicating which of these hypotheses is most promising.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Aug
pubmed:issn
0300-5127
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
34
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
519-22
pubmed:dateRevised
2010-11-18
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2006
pubmed:articleTitle
Why have sex? The population genetics of sex and recombination.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T1Z4. otto@zoology.ubc.ca
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Review