Ameiotic recombination in asexual lineages of Daphnia.

ABSTRACT: Despite the enormous theoretical attention given to the evolutionary consequences of sexual reproduction, the validity of the key assumptions on which the theory depends rarely has been evaluated. It is often argued that a reduced ability to purge deleterious mutations condemns asexual lineages to an early extinction. However, most well characterized asexual lineages fail to exhibit the high levels of neutral allelic divergence expected in the absence of recombination. With purely descriptive data, it is difficult to evaluate whether this pattern is a consequence of the rapid demise of asexual lineages, an unusual degree of mutational stability, or recombination. Here, we show in mutation-accumulation lines of asexual Daphnia that the rate of loss of nucleotide heterozygosity by ameiotic r

SUBMITTER: Omilian AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1693715 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature