An Advantage of Sexual reproduction in a Rapidly
Changing Environment
J. Crow. Journal of Heredity, (1992)Abstract When an environmental change imposes strong
directional selection, there are two advantages of
sexual reproduction. First, an asexual population is
limited to the most extreme individual in the
population, and progress under directional selection
can go no farther without mutation; no such limitation
applies to a sexual population. Second, more
quantitatively, directional selection in an asexual
population mono-tonically decreases the variance,
whereas the variance of a sexual population quickly
reaches a steady value; this difference remains even if
the direction of selection occasionally changes. With
realistic environmental changes small alterations in
any particular measurement or trait are usually
sufficient to keep up with the changes, but fitness,
since it depends on a large number of traits, will be
selected with greater intensity, which may be enough to
confer a distinct advantage on sexual reproduction.
This applies particularly to a large or rapid
environmental change. Eventually mutation will enhance
the variance, but by then it may be too late to prevent
extinction of asexual strains..
Please choose a person to relate this publication to
To differ between persons with the same name, the academic degree and the title of an important publication will be displayed. You can also use the button next to the name to display some publications already assigned to the person.
Upsetting the dogma: germline selection in human malesJ. Crow. PLoS Genet, (2012)Inbreeding and variance effective population numbersJ. Crow, and C. Denniston. Evolution, 42 (3):
482-495(May 1988)An Advantage of Sexual reproduction in a Rapidly
Changing EnvironmentJ. Crow. Journal of Heredity, (1992)Abstract When an environmental change imposes strong
directional selection, there are two advantages of
sexual reproduction. First, an asexual population is
limited to the most extreme individual in the
population, and progress under directional selection
can go no farther without mutation; no such limitation
applies to a sexual population. Second, more
quantitatively, directional selection in an asexual
population mono-tonically decreases the variance,
whereas the variance of a sexual population quickly
reaches a steady value; this difference remains even if
the direction of selection occasionally changes. With
realistic environmental changes small alterations in
any particular measurement or trait are usually
sufficient to keep up with the changes, but fitness,
since it depends on a large number of traits, will be
selected with greater intensity, which may be enough to
confer a distinct advantage on sexual reproduction.
This applies particularly to a large or rapid
environmental change. Eventually mutation will enhance
the variance, but by then it may be too late to prevent
extinction of asexual strains..
Select or create another person
You can add a new person with the name "Crow, J. F.", or you can connect "Crow, J. F." with a person entry that is so far only been referred to by another name (such as a former name or an alias name).
Your choice of the person associated to the publication can be saved in our system, so that no other have to make this choice again. Do you want to save your choice?
Disambiguation
The disambiguation is part of the BibSonomy genealogy project and is used to link unassigned publications to an existing person. You see the referenced publication of the author "Crow, J. F.", a list of already existing persons with the same author-name, and if available, other publications associated to them. Now you have the option to assign this publication to a person or create a new one.