Journal article
Can resource costs of polyploidy provide an advantage to sex?
Heredity, Vol.110(2), pp.152-159
02/2013
DOI: 10.1038/hdy.2012.78
PMCID: PMC3554456
PMID: 23188174
Abstract
The predominance of sexual reproduction despite its costs indicates that sex provides substantial benefits, which are usually thought to derive from the direct genetic consequences of recombination and syngamy. While genetic benefits of sex are certainly important, sexual and asexual individuals, lineages, or populations may also differ in physiological and life history traits that could influence outcomes of competition between sexuals and asexuals across environmental gradients. Here, we address possible phenotypic costs of a very common correlate of asexuality, polyploidy. We suggest that polyploidy could confer resource costs related to the dietary phosphorus demands of nucleic acid production; such costs could facilitate the persistence of sex in situations where asexual taxa are of higher ploidy level and phosphorus availability limits important traits like growth and reproduction. We outline predictions regarding the distribution of diploid sexual and polyploid asexual taxa across biogeochemical gradients and provide suggestions for study systems and empirical approaches for testing elements of our hypothesis.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Can resource costs of polyploidy provide an advantage to sex?
- Creators
- M Neiman - Department of Biology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. maurine-neiman@uiowa.eduA D KayA C Krist
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Heredity, Vol.110(2), pp.152-159
- DOI
- 10.1038/hdy.2012.78
- PMID
- 23188174
- PMCID
- PMC3554456
- ISSN
- 0018-067X
- eISSN
- 1365-2540
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 02/2013
- Academic Unit
- Office Of The Provost; Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies; Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9984217426402771
Metrics
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