Why is Sex so Great?

The selected reading was about the good and bad parts about sexual and asexual reproduction. In the note from Dr. Tatiana, she talked about how sex was such an important aspect of life. In the chapter "Wholly Virgin", the author gives reasons about how asexual reproduction is good or bad, and also compares it to sexual reproduction.

Sex is important, since without sex, everything that is beautiful in nature would exist. This is because the organisms would have to try to attract mates by "wearing costumes". It is also important for survival and reproduction. The mixing of genes during sex will help with the process of natural selection and mutations.

One benefit of sex is that sex mixes genes from different individuals. It is an internal shuffling of each chromosome, so it produces a different genetic combination than each of its parents. This shuffling can also keep the amount of harmful mutations down, which will increase the survival rate of the species. Another benefit of the shuffling is that diseases will have a harder time infecting the species, as the species will evolve to resist the disease. Although sexual production has many benefits, it also has some costs. For example, the species will not be able to produce as quickly or easily as asexual organisms.

 Asexual reproducing organisms, such as the Philodina and E. coli, are benefited since asexual production is more efficient than sexual reproduction, as it produces twice as much offspring. It is also easier to do, since it does not require the participation of a male organism. A cost of asexually reproducing is that it is a evolutionary dead end and usually quickly leads to extinction. There are many ways to extinction, including harmful mutations and diseases. These problems can be sidestepped with effort, for example, a species can have a very large population, which will help the amount of organisms without harmful mutations to grow. They can also go through anhydrobiosis, which will stop the disease problem, although not all organisms will survive the process.

The difference between Muller's ratchet and Kondrashov's hatchet was kind of confusing, as they were pretty similar. I would like to learn more about viruses and how they work.