Evolution of sex: Using experimental genomics to select among competing theories

Few topics have intrigued biologists as much as the evolution of sex. Understanding why sex persists despite its costs requires not just rigorous theoretical study, but also empirical data on related fundamental issues, including the nature of genetic variance for fitness, patterns of genetic interactions, and the dynamics of adaptation. The increasing feasibility of examining genomes in an experimental context is now shedding new light on these problems. Using this approach, McDonald et al. recently demonstrated that sex uncouples beneficial and deleterious mutations, allowing selection to proceed more effectively with sex than without. Here we discuss the insights provided by this study, along with other recent empirical work, in the context of the major theoretical models for the evolution of sex.

Competing hypotheses for the evolutionary benefits of sex are increasingly amenable to empirical testing, thanks to advances in genomics. Recent experiments suggest that sex increases genetic variance by uncoupling beneficial alleles from deleterious alleles in the same genome, allowing selection to be more effective and increasing long-term mean fitness.

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