Sex releases the speed limit on evolution

被引:183
作者
Colegrave, N [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Edinburgh, Inst Cell Anim & Populat Biol, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, Midlothian, Scotland
基金
英国生物技术与生命科学研究理事会;
关键词
D O I
10.1038/nature01191
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Explaining the evolutionary maintenance of sex remains a key problem in evolutionary biology(1-3). One potential benefit of sex is that it may allow a more rapid adaptive response when environmental conditions change, by increasing the efficiency with which selection can fix beneficial mutations(4-7). Here I show that sex can increase the rate of adaptation in the facultatively sexual single-celled chlorophyte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, but that the benefits of sex depend crucially on the size of the population that is adapting: sex has a marked effect in large populations but little effect in small populations. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the benefits of sex in a novel environment, including stochastic effects in small populations, clonal interference and epistasis between beneficial alleles. These results indicate that clonal interference is important in this system.
引用
收藏
页码:664 / 666
页数:3
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