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Escape from the Red Queen: an overlooked scenario in coevolutionary studies
Author(s) -
Leung Tommy L. F.,
King Kayla C.,
Wolinska Justyna
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
oikos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.672
H-Index - 179
eISSN - 1600-0706
pISSN - 0030-1299
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2011.19873.x
Subject(s) - asexuality , coevolution , biology , asexual reproduction , sexual reproduction , evolutionary biology , host (biology) , evolution of sexual reproduction , experimental evolution , antagonistic coevolution , reproduction , zoology , sexual selection , ecology , genetics , sexual conflict , gene , human sexuality , gender studies , sociology
Almost all eukaryotic organisms undergo sexual recombination at some stage of their life history. However, strictly asexual organisms should have higher per capita rate of reproduction compared with those that have sex, so the latter must convey some advantage which overrides the reproductive benefit of asexuality. For example, sexual reproduction and recombination may play an important role in allowing organisms to evolutionarily ‘keep up’ with parasites. Host–parasite coevolution can operate via negative frequency‐dependent selection whereby parasite genotypes adapt to infect host genotypes as they become locally common. By producing more genetically diverse offspring with unique genotypes, sexual organisms have an advantage over asexual counterparts. Essentially, sexual hosts are more difficult for coevolving parasites to ‘track’ over time. This scenario has been named the “Red Queen hypothesis”. It refers to a passage in Lewis Carroll's ‘Through the Looking Glass’ in which the Red Queen tells Alice: ‘it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place’; this statement resembles the negative frequency‐dependent dynamics of host–parasite coevolution.