Through the Looking Glass: I. Why Cross-Fertilize?

Book on the evolutionary problem of sexual reproduction

Author

Affiliation

Curtis M. Lively

Indiana University Bloomington Department of Biology

Abstract

The following pages represent the first volume of a book. The main goal is to introduce the evolutionary problem of sexual reproduction with a focus on competition between sexual and asexual females. But I also incorporate some ideas on genetic polymorphism and phenotypic plasticity with the goal of exploring variation strategies more generally. Finally, I try to weave in some history of the field along with some philosophy of science.

Keywords

evolution, coevolution, host-parasite interactions, Muller’s ratchet, parthenogenesis, Red Queen hypothesis, sexual reproduction

Front Matter

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge helpful comments from Amrita Bhattacharya, Zoe Dinges, Kara Million, Deanna Soper, Mike Wade, Jukka Jokela, Dorota Paczesniak, Steve Howard, Lynda Delph, Clark Craddock, Robert Vrijenhoek, Jan McKenzie, Mike Winterbourn, Stuart West, Bob Holt, Oren Harman, and especially Maurine Neiman and her lab group at the University of Iowa. Additional comments are welcome by email.

Special thanks to Zoe Michelle Dinges (ZMD). Zoe redrew the figures, and she created the beautiful illustrations.

Special thanks also to Adam Mazel of Indiana University Libraries for preparing the document for online publication. I am also grateful to Bart Zijlstra and Gabe Harp for permission to use their original photographs.

This project was supported by the NSF OPUS program for the synthesis of biological research (DEB-1906465). I am also grateful to the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) for my stay as a partner during 2022-2023.

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Copyright and License

© 2024 Curtis M. Lively
Illustrations © 2024 Zoe Michelle Dinges

Unless otherwise indicated, Through the Looking Glass: I. Why Cross-Fertilize? by Curtis M. Lively and Zoe Michelle Dinges is licensed under Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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Publisher

Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Publishing
1320 E. Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405

How to Cite

Lively, C.M. (2024). Through the Looking Glass: I. Why Cross-Fertilize? Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Publishing.