Asexual Daphnia genomes expose something old, brand new, lent, and blue
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Intercourse what exactly is it beneficial to? Anthropocentric responses aside, this stays a central—and mainly unanswered—question in evolutionary biology (1). Although asexual reproduction is phylogentically extensive among eukaryotes, none of the asexual lineages [with just a few arguable exceptions (2)] succeed like their counterparts that are sexually reproducing. Or in other words, asexual lineages are fundamentally destined for extinction. These incipient evolutionary failures are indispensable to evolutionary biologists, but, because by comprehending the development of asexuals, one thing could be learned all about the raison d’etre of intercourse it self. The “water flea” Daphnia pulex is certainly one of a model that is few utilized to analyze the evolutionary upkeep of intercourse. Many lineages of D. pulex switch between intimate and asexual reproduction, but obligate asexuality has arisen numerous times in normal populations. In PNAS, Tucker et al. (3) explain their analyses of whole-genome sequences of 22 D. pulex lineages (11 sexuals and 11 asexuals) that reveal the molecular underpinnings and genomic effects of asexuality in this species and illuminate why it isn’t a sustainable reproductive strategy.
A meiosis-suppressing genomic region, was borrowed by introgression from its sister species, Daphnia pulicaria, and is rather old, arising between 1,250 and 187,000 y ago in this ground-breaking report, Tucker et al. (3) show that the genetic cause of asexuality in D. pulex. But, the asexual lineages themselves are really new—only a few decades—as would be the extremely regular events of gene transformation and removal that most likely underlie the demise that is rapid of asexual lineages. Continue reading “Without a doubt more about See all Hide authors and affiliations”