Effective purifying selection in ancient asexual oribatid mites

Effective purifying selection in ancient asexual oribatid mites

Asexual reproduction is thought to be an evolutionary dead end in eukaryotes because deleterious mutations will not be purged effectively. Here, Brandt and colleagues show that anciently asexual oribatid mites in fact have reduced accumulation of deleterious mutations compared to their sexual relati...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Alexander Brandt, Ina Schaefer, Julien Glanz, Tanja Schwander, Mark Maraun, Stefan Scheu, Jens Bast
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2017-10-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01002-8
Description
Summary:Asexual reproduction is thought to be an evolutionary dead end in eukaryotes because deleterious mutations will not be purged effectively. Here, Brandt and colleagues show that anciently asexual oribatid mites in fact have reduced accumulation of deleterious mutations compared to their sexual relatives.
ISSN:2041-1723

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