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evolution of sex; experimental evolution
Abstract:
The geographical distribution of sexual and related asexual species has been
suggested to correlate with habitat stability; sexual species tend to be in stable
habitats (K-selection), whereas related asexual taxa tend to be in unstable
habitats (r-selection). We test whether this broad-scale pattern can be
re-created at a microevolutionary scale by experimentally evolving populations
of facultatively sexual rotifers under different ecological conditions.
Consistent with the pattern in nature, we find that the rate of sex evolves
to lower levels in the r-selected than in K-selection environments. We consider
several different explanations for these results.
