Abstract
Sex is a paradoxical phenomenon because it is less efficient compared with asexual reproduction. To resolve this paradox we need a direct comparison between sexual and asexual forms. In many organisms, however, sexual and asexual forms do not occur in the same habitat, or at the same time. In a few cases where sexual and asexual forms are found in a single population, some (though rare) genetic exchange is usually detected between the two forms. When genetic exchange occurs a direct comparison is impossible. Here we investigate a thrips exhibiting both sexual and asexual forms (lineages) that are morphologically indistinguishable. We examine if the two forms are genetically isolated. Phylogeny based on nuclear genes confirms that the sexual and asexual lineages are genetically differentiated. Thus we demonstrate that the current system has certain advantages over existing and previously used model systems in the evolution of sexual reproduction.
Highlights
Sex is a paradoxical phenomenon because it is less efficient compared with asexual reproduction
In a few cases where sexual and asexual forms are found in a single population, some genetic exchange is usually detected between the two forms
Using the classification derived from the polymerase chain reaction with sequence specific primers (PCR-SSP) method[23], we discriminated the sexual and asexual females collected in the fields
Summary
Sex is a paradoxical phenomenon because it is less efficient compared with asexual reproduction. Many models have been proposed and tested to explain the superiority of sex over asex[8,9,10,11,12,13,14], the results are inconclusive This is partly because of a lack of a comparative analysis of population dynamics between sympatric sexual and asexual populations, the most popular cost of sex, that is production of males, influences population dynamics. For a direct comparison we need an asexual form (lineage) that is genetically isolated from the sympatric sexual counterpart Such species is an excellent model organism with which to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of sex in an ecological context. We constructed a molecular phylogeny of the lineages
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