Week 14

Sexual reproduction is one of the favored reproduction strategies of evolution. While there could be some advantages to other forms of reproduction, such as asexual and clonal reproduction, sexual reproduction is needed to have significant benefits in evolution. Sexual reproduction helps promote genetic diversity and adaptability to the organism's environment. This is shown in many different mechanisms. 

The Red Queen hypothesis states that organisms must constantly adapt to not just gain an advantage in their environment but in order to keep up with the threats that evolving pathogens pose to the organisms. In this race for fitness, organisms must use sexual reproduction to keep up with the evolving pathogens in their environment. 

Heterozygosity demonstrates how sexually reproducing organisms can receive different alleles from different parents, as opposed to asexual reproduction in which the offspring is a clone of their parent. This diversity of alleles allows for organisms to have a larger range of traits that can help the organisms against natural selection. The genetic variation means that the individuals that have advantageous traits are more likely to pass them on to their offspring. 

Parasitism shows how parasites require a host for their survival, this need for a host puts constant pressure on the host to evolve. In asexual populations, since the offspring is identical to the parent if one individual can be infected, they all can.

This complements my understanding that sexual reproduction is the most used form of reproduction because of the advantages it allows the organisms in their environment. I would like to future explore the ways the organisms evolve to protect against pathogens.