Why do creatures need to mate?

The question seems simple, but it is not easy to answer. It is true that " sex " helps organisms to maintain the race, but in many species there is another option: asexual reproduction, ie without the need to mate the female with the male.

Surprisingly, there is still no single answer, obviously for the question "Why is the creature doing it"? ". In fact, until now, researchers have come up with more than 20 different hypotheses that explain it.

Recently, many tests have begun to test these assumptions, bringing us closer to finding the final answer.

In asexual species, the female reproduces without the genetic contribution of the male and creates the same girls as the mother. Anyone who has ever seen their rose plant faded because aphids will know how successful this reproductive strategy can be.

In asexual species, males often do not contribute to females. While bisexual mothers need to produce both boys and girls, a single mother can create her own daughter.

Male asexual species often do not contribute to females.

If female individuals are responsible for maintaining the breed (they produce eggs, nurture young children, etc.), this will make the population development process quicker and easier: an individual the asexual can become 2, 2 can become 4, 4 can become 8, and so on. This has been validated through experiments comparing single beetles with bisexual beetles in a laboratory environment.

With the exception of mammals (including humans) and birds, almost every species classification group exists clones , including some fish, reptiles, plants and insects, but they are unpopular. That implies, despite the benefits of asexual reproduction, in terms of biology in the long run, mating still wins. Evolutionary studies on this issue currently focus on two broad hypothesis streams. Both streams of this theory are based on the fact that mating processes create diversity, by mixing the genetic structure of the parents.

Proponents of the "decisive decision" hypothesis say that if organisms with many mutations have a disproportionately low survival rate, many bad variations tend to disappear with hosts, creating a large number of creatures without such variations. In asexual species, due to the lack of this variety, no individual is particularly affected by the variation. As a result, no death due to mutation eliminates many of those harmful mutations.

However, this hypothesis is increasingly skeptical, as it is clear that many bisexual species, including insects and plants, are not really producing many harmful mutations as hypothesized.

There may be many reasons why re-sexual intercourse supports adaptability.

Another theory is that mating allows a lineage of organisms to adapt to changing conditions. Authentic experiments, members of a bisexual breed often adapt faster than clones with species when living conditions change. In fact, these experiments show that, if a bisexual community is allowed to freely evolve under changing conditions, it can replace an entire asexual community.

There may be many reasons why re-sexual intercourse supports adaptability. For example, imagine two individuals in a cloned community possessing a good but different variation. Because their DNA cannot mix, their descendants compete with each other and you will never get the benefit of both good mutations in an individual.

In contrast, in a bisexual community, both good mutations are able to find a way to converge into an individual. In this way, we get the benefits of both variants, making adaptation much easier. A study at the molecular level, published last February, confirmed this.

Therefore, the speed of adaptation seems to be a relatively satisfactory explanation. But, what happens after the end of an environmental change and the conditions become stable? Can we not think of asexual individuals emerging again to compete with bisexual individuals?

Speeding up adaptation seems to be a fairly satisfactory explanation.

For this reason, many researchers are increasingly paying attention to the notion that mating diversity also helps species adapt in the evolutionary battle never to end with their parasites. In fact, immune-related genes are among the fastest-evolving genes we have.

In addition, recently, researchers have obtained evidence that species can increase the amount of gene mixing when they feel they are infected with a parasite. That means, their descendants will be even more different from their predecessors and their parents.

We also know the disadvantages of lack of diversity in a clonal crop . For example, the attack of parasitic organisms led to the loss of the Irish potato crop during the period 1845 - 1849. Currently, banana trees are also threatened by the attack of many other parasitic fungi. together. This fact is particularly concerned because more than 95% of bananas exported worldwide rely on a single clonal strain (Cavendish bananas) .

So, do creatures " do it" to ensure their descendants are not wiped out of disease or prevent them from getting harmful mutations ? These two hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Researchers are considering the possibility of giving a "hybrid" hypothesis between them. But for them, a big question remains: Why are there more species that do not possess both asexual and bisexual stages?