Secretive ciliates and putative asexuality in microbial eukaryotes

Abstract

Facultative sexuality is assumed to have occurred in the ancestor of all extant eukaryotes, but the distribution and maintenance of sex among microbial eukaryotes is still under debate. In this paper, we address the purported asexuality in colpodean ciliates as an exemplary lineage. Colpodeans are a primarily terrestrial clade thought to have arisen up to 900 MYA and contain one known derived sexual species. We conclude that the putative asexuality of this lineage is an observational artifact. We suggest that the same might hold for other microbial eukaryotes, and that many are secretively sexual as well. Theoretical work from the distantly related plants and animals suggests that both the evolutionary success of ancient asexuals and the reversal of the loss of sex are highly unlikely, further suggesting that colpodeans are secretively sexual. However, it remains to be seen to what extent sexual theories and predictions derived from macro-organismic lineages apply also to microbial eukaryotes.