Article
Sexual reproduction as an adaptation to resist parasites (a review).
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - 1 May 1990
Hamilton W D, Axelrod R, Tanese R
Abstract excerpt
Darwinian theory has yet to explain adequately the fact of sex. If males provide little or no aid to offspring, a high (up to 2-fold) extra average fitness has to emerge as a property of a sexual parentage if sex is to be stable. The advantage must presumably come from recombination but has been hard to identify. It may well lie in the necessity to recombine defenses to defeat numerous parasites. A model...
Topics
- Adaptation, Biological
- Alleles
- Animals
- Biological Evolution
- Female
- Gene Frequency
- Humans
- Immunity, Innate
- Male
- Parasitic Diseases
- Reproduction