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Sex as a strategy against rapidly evolving parasites
#MMPMID28003455
Auld SK
; Tinkler SK
; Tinsley MC
Proc Biol Sci
2016[Dec]; 283
(1845
): ? PMID28003455
show ga
Why is sex ubiquitous when asexual reproduction is much less costly? Sex disrupts
coadapted gene complexes; it also causes costs associated with mate finding and
the production of males who do not themselves bear offspring. Theory predicts
parasites select for host sex, because genetically variable offspring can escape
infection from parasites adapted to infect the previous generations. We examine
this using a facultative sexual crustacean, Daphnia magna, and its sterilizing
bacterial parasite, Pasteuria ramosa We obtained sexually and asexually produced
offspring from wild-caught hosts and exposed them to contemporary parasites or
parasites isolated from the same population one year later. We found rapid
parasite adaptation to replicate within asexual but not sexual offspring.
Moreover, sexually produced offspring were twice as resistant to infection as
asexuals when exposed to parasites that had coevolved alongside their parents
(i.e. the year two parasite). This fulfils the requirement that the benefits of
sex must be both large and rapid for sex to be favoured by selection.
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