what is the evolutionary advantage of sexual reproduction?

Question

organic biology

Answer 1

There is one primary advantage, and one secondary advantage:

The primary advantage is that it provides a fantastic way to generate variation. Every single offspring is a brand new combination of genes. Rather than new genetic material being the result of rare mutations, recombination is built right into the reproduction cycle.

The secondary advantage is sexual competition ... in some species males or females compete for the opportunity to mate. This can be literally battles between males, resulting in bigger and stronger males (what's called 'sexual dimorphism' ... the males are much bigger than the females of a species). Or it can be in the form of 'sexual selection' where one sex "chooses" the member of the other sex to mate with. In either case, this adds another layer of competition.

So both of these represent increases in 'variation' and 'competition' respectively ... both of which are key parts of natural selection. So they both serve to accelerate evolution.

I say the first one is 'primary' because this is an advantage that *all* sexually reproducing species enjoy. The second one (sexual competition) is only a factor in *some*, but not all, sexually reproducing species.

Answer 2

Evolutionary advantage of sexual reproduction is that the chacter are not repeated. Though the new born might resemble the parent in some way, it still has its unique identity.

Answer 3

The main advantage of sexual reproduction is the ability for a species to adapt to change.

For example, there is a particular kind of ocean slug that can either reproduce through sex or asexual reproduction. When its environment is basically bacteria free, it will choose asexual reproduction, and when its not, it will reproduce through sex.

Answer 4

The capacity to combine and mix the maternal and paternal chromosomes in the gamete results in genetic variation among the offspring.

In an environment which changes, genetic variation allows the process of natural selection to occur.