ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 4050
Session = 19.4.5


GENETICS AND EVOLUTION OF ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION


C. William Birky, Jr., Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Genetics Program, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85745


Asexual reproduction is important in the life history of many organisms but is not well understood. I will address three questions: (1) In a predominantly asexual organism, how can we detect rare, furtive, or cryptic sexual reproduction? Phylogenetic analysis can be a powerful tool for this. (2) What are the genetic and evolutionary consequences of long-term asexual reproduction? These can include run-away heterozygosity in diploids or in haploid mycelia, and allele-specific phylogenies. Possible limitations on these processes will be discussed. (3) Sexual reproduction is easily lost and becomes irreversible in facultatively asexual organisms, so why does it persist? Sex makes natural selection more effective, so loss of sex should result in higher extinction rates and/or lower speciation rates, but this has not been adequately tested.


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