Sex is necessary for many things, including generating genetic variability. Natural selection acts on the variations of the genome and in this way new species are formed. ? The most intuitive thing would be to think that, therefore, sex accelerates evolution and that the resulting ecosystems will have greater biodiversity ,? explains Carlos J. Melián, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. However, according to a study echoed by the SINC agency, the species that emerge through this mechanism give rise to populations of fewer individuals than those that reproduce asexually, and therefore become extinct more quickly.
The result of the investigation adds fuel to the fire in a debate that has been going on for more than a century:what is the role of sex in evolution. According to Melián, sex creates new combinations of genes, eliminates deleterious mutations and allows adaptation to changes in the environment. Enough reasons why it should accelerate the emergence of new species.
However, the paradox is thatsexual reproduction increases genetic variation but reduces species diversity. “The greater the genetic variability, the faster new species are generated, but each one of them has a low number of individuals, which implies that they have agreater probability of extinctiondue to environmental fluctuations or other types of changes that continually alter the dynamics of ecosystems “clarifies Melián in the magazinePLoS Computational Biology. In addition, finding a mate and exposure to sexually transmitted diseases are also mechanisms by which sexual reproduction can slow down the evolution of species.
