Department of Biology, York University, Toronto M3J 1P3, Canada Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Dartmouth College, Lebanon NH 03756, USA Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 9201192, Japan Department of Biodiversity Science, Division of Biological Resource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Oosaki 989-6711, Japan

A leading hypothesis for the evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction proposes that sex is advantageous because it facilitates adaptation. Changes in the environment stimulate adaptation but not all changes are equivalent; a change may occur along one or multiple environmental dimensions. In two evolution experiments with the facultatively sexual rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus, we test ...

Many plant species have two modes of reproduction: sexual and asexual. Both modes of reproduction have often been viewed as adaptations to temporally or spatially variable environments. The plant should adjust partitioning to match changes in the estimated success of the two reproductive modes. Perennial plants showed that favorable habitats in soil nutrients or water content tend to promote cl...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The knotweed complex, Fallopia spp. (Polygonaceae), belongs to the most troublesome invasive species in Europe and North America. Vegetative regeneration is widely recognized as the main mode of reproduction in the adventive regions. However, the contribution of sexual reproduction to the success of these invasive species has only been detailed for the British Isles. An exam...

The interaction between seed plants and animals during pollination and fruit and seed dispersal is well known, and marks the sexual reproduction process. During the history of the plant kingdom, the development of sexual reproduction has been governed by changes in the environment of the plant, together with the increasing complexity of organisms. The interactions between gametes and the enviro...

BACKGROUND Fundamental questions in evolutionary genetics, including the possible advantage of sexual reproduction, depend critically on the effects of deleterious mutations on fitness. Limited existing experimental evidence suggests that, on average, such effects tend to be aggravated under environmental stresses, consistent with the perception that stress diminishes the organism's ability to ...

Variability in the way organisms reproduce raises numerous, and still unsolved, questions in evolutionary biology. In this study, we emphasize that fungi deserve a much greater emphasis in efforts to address these questions because of their multiple advantages as model eukaryotes. A tremendous diversity of reproductive modes and mating systems can be found in fungi, with many evolutionary trans...

Although Giardia is of practical importance as a pathogen and has theoretical importance in evolutionary biology, it is not known whether it ever reproduces sexually. Several recent papers have shed light on this problem, without completely solving it. One paper shows that nuclei in the encysted organism can temporarily fuse and exchange genes; this may explain the genetic similarity of the two...