克隆植物的无性与有性繁殖对策

许多植物同时具有克隆生长与有性繁殖,两种繁殖方式间的平衡在不同物种间以及同一物种内不同种群间变化很大。旺盛的克隆生长可能会从多方面影响生活史进化。首先,许多克隆植物的有性繁殖与更新程度都很低,甚至有一些植物由于克隆生长而几乎完全放弃了有性过程,从而影响到克隆植物对局域环境的适应和地理范围进化。其次,克隆生长增大花展示进而增加了对传粉者的吸引,同时也增加了同株异花授粉的风险,而同株异花授粉往往会导致植物雄性和雌性适合度的下降。因此,克隆植物的空间结构与交配方式间可能存在着协同进化关系。最后,克隆生长与有性繁殖间可能存在着权衡关系:对克隆生长的资源投入将会减少对有性繁殖的资源投入。这种权衡关系可能是由环境条件、竞争力度、植物寿命和遗传等因素决定的。如果不同的繁殖方式是植物在不同环境下采取的适应性对策,那么我们可以预期:在波动和竞争力度大的生境中,植物应将大部分的繁殖资源分配给有性繁殖;而在相对稳定的环境中,克隆繁殖应该占据优势地位。但是自然选择对两种繁殖方式的选择结果是什么,以及控制这两种方式间平衡的生态和遗传因子究竟有哪些,到底是克隆生长单向地影响了植物的有性繁殖,还是与有性过程相伴随的选择压力同时塑造了植物的克隆习性?目前尚不清楚。同时从无性与有性繁殖两个方面综合考察克隆植物的繁殖对策是今后亟待加强的工作。     

啤酒酵母子囊孢子的培养与观察

啤酒酵母子囊孢子的培养与观察叶卫京（浙江省绍兴市农校３１１８２５）啤酒酵母的有性繁殖产生子囊和子囊抱子。在进行有性繁殖时，两个单倍体的营养细胞结合，质配后发生核配，形成二倍体细胞。这种二倍体细胞在许多情况下能通过出芽繁殖延续几代。在适当的条件下，二倍...     

复制生命,是福音还是祸水?

复制生命,是福音还是祸水？奇云一、无性可以繁殖吗？生命繁殖后代的方式一般有两种,一种是有性繁殖（又叫双亲繁殖）,另一种是无性繁殖（也叫单亲繁殖）。从古至今,高等动物都是有性繁殖子孙,低等动物都是无性繁殖后代。高等动物（包括人在内）的有性繁殖方式固然有...     

密度制约作用对箭叶淫羊藿有性繁殖时期形态特征的影响

运用回归分析和非参数检验方法,研究了箭叶淫羊藿（Epimedium sagittatum）在有性繁殖的3个时期克隆片段密度对其各个形态特征的影响,以揭示其资源和繁殖投资情况。结果表明：箭叶淫羊藿在3个有性繁殖期间克隆片段密度对其各个形态特征的影响显著。从回归分析的R^2指数来看,其克隆片段密度增大对3个生长时期的制约作用是由弱到强,同时在有性繁殖期间随克隆片段密度的增加其资源投资趋向于有性繁殖;从非参数检验结果来看,有性繁殖期间箭叶淫羊藿明显增加其叶数、叶宽等来获取更多的资源用于提高其繁殖能力,以取得生存。     

密度制约作用对箭叶淫羊藿有性繁殖时期形态特征的影响

运用回归分析和非参数检验方法,研究了箭叶淫羊藿(Epimedium sagittatum)在有性繁殖的三个时期克隆片段密度对其各个形态特征的影响,以揭示其资源和繁殖投资情况。结果表明：箭叶淫羊藿在三个有性繁殖期间克隆片段密度对其各个形态特征的影响显著。从回归分析的R2指数来看,其克隆片段密度增大对三个生长时期的制约作用是由弱到强,同时在有性繁殖期间随克隆片段密度的增加其资源投资趋向于有性繁殖;从非参数检验结果来看,有性繁殖期间箭叶淫羊藿明显增加其叶数、叶宽等来获取更多的资源用于提高其繁殖能力,以取得生存。     

无性繁殖挑战生命伦理

两年前,《自然》杂志上发表了日本东京农业大学河野友宏教授领导的研究小组利用两只雌鼠卵子中的遗传物质以无受精的方式繁殖成功幼鼠的报道。这种单性繁殖方式无疑给人类原本极其关注的高等动物无性生殖又增加了一个崭新的话题,给原本众说纷纭、争论不休的生命伦理讨论带来了新的问题。无性繁殖是低等生物如病毒、细菌和部分植物的特征,而动物的繁殖方式是有性繁殖。有性繁殖是生命繁殖方式的一种高级形式,是生物出现性别分化后的进化产物,在生命演化史中具有积极的意义。     

藕莲有性繁殖栽培

根据莲(Nelumbo nucifera)生物学特性,既可用藕作种进行无性繁殖,也可用种子播种进行有性繁殖。藕莲在我国有数千年的栽培历史,但素以无性系栽培。尚未见到有性繁殖栽培的报道。作者自1980年起进行了有性繁殖栽培试验。       

植物组织的异质性

许多杰出的生物学家研究在一棵植株中组织的异质性的问题。同一植株中组织的异质性是人所共知的事实。不仅在用有性的方法繁殖植物时,而且在用营养的方法繁殖植物时也可以观察到组织的异质性。     

增加水分与养分对克隆植物羊柴自然种群繁殖权衡的影响

 羊柴(Hedysarum laeve)是豆科多年生半灌木,在自然条件下可以同时进行有性繁殖和克隆繁殖。该文在野外条件下研究了不同水平的水分和养 分处理对羊柴种群的繁殖权衡的影响。结果表明,与对照相比,增加一定量的水分处理显著减少了花和荚果的生物量;显著增加了克隆分株枝 的生物量,显著减少了分株根茎的生物量, 但没有影响其它部分的生物量。增加一定量的水分会抑制有性繁殖,改变生物量对克隆繁殖分株各 部分的分配比例。与对照相比,增加一定量的养分能够促进有性繁殖,抑制克隆繁殖。     

长白山区野生百合引种驯化及园艺栽培技术

对长白山野生百合进行了资源调查和引种驯化,发现百合的病害较多,大多数品种喜肥并须遮荫;可进行有性繁殖和无性繁殖,卷丹可利用腋球繁殖,有性繁殖种子须进行暖温处理.无性繁殖种球形成时间短,退化现象少于有性繁殖.培育基质为沙壤土.试验证明,人工栽培的长白山野生百合在鳞茎的生长、观花、赏叶方面明显优于自然生长的野生百合,为开发利用该资源提供技术支持.     

A centrosomal theory of the short term evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction

A new mode of inheritance is postulated in which a sexual offspring receives a contribution from each parent and selects the better to pass on to its own offspring. This could provide a simple advantage to sex over a sex whose magnitude is shown to be of the order of a doubling of fitness in each generation, large enough to cancel the twofold cost of sex. This possible advantage to sex can be realized only if a cell component is in fact inherited in this selectively ambiguous way. No such component is known of, but the eukaryotic centrosome is a possible candidate. The possibility is discussed that the centrosome contains an obligatorily non-digital replicator which has an essential function in the initiation of microtubules. If this theory is true, it has the capacity to apply as widely as sex is found, and it would rescue theories of the long-term maintenance of sex from the necessity to provide a twofold advantage in each generation. If false, the theory will soon be disproved.     

How much better are females? The occurrence of female advantage,its proximal causes and its variation within and among gynodioecious species

Background

Gynodioecy is a reproductive system of interest for evolutionary biologists, as it poses the question of how females can be maintained while competing with hermaphrodites that possess both male and female functions. One necessary condition for the maintenance of this polymorphism is the occurrence of a female advantage, i.e. a better seed production or quality by females compared with hermaphrodites. Theoretically, its magnitude can be low when sterility mutations are cytoplasmic, while a 2-fold advantage is needed in the case of nuclear sterility. Such a difference is often thought to be due to reduced inbreeding depression in obligatory outcrossed females. Finally, variation in sex ratio and female advantage occur among populations of some gynodioecious species, though the prevalence of such variation is unknown.

Scope

By reviewing and analysing the data published on 48 gynodioecious species, we examined three important issues about female advantage. (1) Are reduced selfing and inbreeding depression likely to be the major cause of female advantage? (2) What is the magnitude of female advantage and does it fit theoretical predictions? (3) Does the occurrence or the magnitude of female advantage vary among populations within species and why?

Conclusions

It was found that a female advantage occurred in 40 species, with a magnitude comprised between 1 and 2 in the majority of cases. In many species, reduced selfing may not be a necessary cause of this advantage. Finally, female advantage varied among populations in some species, but both positive and negative correlations were found with female frequency. The role of reduced selfing in females for the evolution of gynodioecy, as well as the various processes that affect sex ratios and female advantage in populations are discussed.     

Tree density,pollen-ovule ratio,and sex ratio in dioecious wind pollinated trees

The comparative reproductive success of male and female trees of a wind pollinated species is studied by simulation. Young trees are recruited into an established forest. When the sex ratio of the established forest is even, the reproductive success of both male and female recruits increases with forest density, and in general a recruit of either sex contributes the same number of successful gametes. When the sex ratio of the established forest deviates from unity, the recruit of the minority sex has a reproductive advantage over the recruit of the majority sex. Because a forest with a biased sex ratio can produce the same level of pollination as a forest with an even sex ratio, the quantity of pollen reaching the stigma of a flower does not convey enough information to permit the sex ratio of progeny to be biased adaptively as has been claimed. The male recruit has a slight advantage over the female recruit when the pollen-ovule ratio is low and vice versa. The biological importance of this phenomenon is uncertain.     

A pluralist approach to sex and recombination

One of the greatest challenges for evolutionary biology is explaining the widespread occurrence of sexual reproduction and the associated process of genetic recombination. A large number of theories have been developed that provide a sufficient short-term advantage for sex to offset its two-fold cost. These theories can be broadly classified into environmental (or ecological) and mutation-based models. Traditionally, the different theories have been viewed as competing, and empirical work has attempted to distinguish between them. Here we highlight the advantages that may be gained from considering that multiple mechanisms (environmental and mutational) may be at work, and that interactions between the theories may be very important.     

Selfish DNA: A Sexually-Transmitted Nuclear Parasite

A quantitative population genetics model for the evolution of transposable genetic elements is developed. This model shows that "selfish" DNA sequences do not have to be selectively neutral at the organismic level; indeed, such DNA can produce major deleterious effects in the host organism and still spread through the population. The model can be used to explain the evolution of introns within eukaryotic genes; this explanation does not invoke a long-term evolutionary advantage for introns, nor does it depend on the hypothesis that eukaryotic gene structure may be an evolutionary relic. Transposable genes that carried information specifying sexual reproduction in the host organism would favor their own spread. Consequently, it is tempting to speculate that some of the genes controlling sex were originally selected as transposable elements.     

ON THE INSTABILITY OF POLYGENIC SEX DETERMINATION: THE EFFECT OF SEX-SPECIFIC SELECTION

A combination of analytical and simulation models is used to explore the initial evolution of genic sex determination from polygenic sex determination. Prior studies have indicated that polygenic sex determination is rare or absent in extant species but that it has likely played an important intermediate role in the evolution of other genetic sex-determination systems. This study explores why polygenic sex determination does not persist. Two possibilities are considered. First it is assumed that a major sex-determining gene also pleiotropically increases fitness. Second it is assumed that the sex-determining gene is neutral but linked to another locus segregating for a rare selectively favored allele. The major conclusion from the models is that sex-specific natural selection will cause polygenic sex determination to be a transient state in most populations. Polygenic sex determination may be an important intermediate step in the evolution of genetically controlled sexual differentiation, but it is unlikely to persist unless there is some selective advantage compared to genic sex determination. This may in part explain the relatively small number of extant species that have polygenic sex determination.     

Discrete Clutch Sizes, Local Mate Competition, and the Evolution of Precise Sex Allocation

Optimal sex allocation under a population structure with local mate competition has been studied mainly in deterministic models that are based on the assumption of continuous clutch sizes; Hamilton's (1967) model is the classic example. When clutch sizes are small, however, this assumption is not appropriate. When taking the discrete nature of eggs into account it becomes critically important whether females control only the mean sex ratio (“binomial” females) or the variance as well (“precise” females). As both types of sex ratio control have been found, it is of interest to investigate their evolutionary stability. In particular, it may be questioned whether perfect control of the sex ratio is always favoured by natural selection when mating groups are small. Models based on discrete clutch sizes are developed to determine evolutionarily stable (ES) sex ratios. It is predicted that when all females are of the binomial type they should produce a lower proportion of daughters than predicted by Hamilton's model, especially when clutch size and foundress number are small. When all females are of the precise type, the ES number of sons should generally be either a stable mixed strategy or a pure strategy, but there are special cases (for two foundresses and particular clutch sizes) where the ES number of sons lies in a trajectory of neutrally stable mixed strategies; the predicted mean sex ratios can be either higher or lower than predicted by Hamilton's model. The existence of ES mixed strategies implies that individual females do not necessarily have to produce sex ratios with perfect precision; some level of imperfection can be tolerated (i.e., will not be selected against). When the population consists of both binomial and precise females, the latter always have a selective advantage. This advantage of precision does not disappear when precision approaches fixation in the population. The latter result contradicts the conclusions of Taylor and Sauer (1980) which is due to their way of expressing selective advantage; they define selective advantage as the between-generation increase per allele, which will always become vanishingly small when an allele reaches fixation, irrespective of fitness differences.     

Pathogens and sex in plants

Summary Extant theories that attribute the evolution of sex to pathogen attack depend on the assumption that pathogens are narrowly specialized, so that high fitness on one host genotype results in poor fitness on hosts with other allele combinations. This assumption is necessary in order for frequency-dependent selection to produce sustained cycling of gametic disequilibrium across the host's disease resistance loci, which makes recombination advantageous. However, a review of numerous genetic studies on plant disease resistance failed to uncover a single example consistent with this assumption. Instead, the empirical results provide strong support for a different pattern of pathogen specificity, in which adaptation by pathogens to one resistance allele does not preclude high fitness on alternate host genotypes lacking that allele. Modification of traditional models for pathogen-mediated evolution of sex showed that for conditions close to the empirical pattern of genotypic specificity, sex is almost never favoured. For plants, these results cast doubt on current theories arguing that pathogens are the primary selective agent responsible for sexual reproduction.     

The coevolution of parasites with host-acquired immunity and the evolution of sex

Abstract. Here I present a deterministic model of the coevolution of parasites with the acquired immunity of their hosts, a system in which coevolutionary oscillations can be maintained. These dynamics can confer an advantage to sexual reproduction within the parasite population, but the effect is not strong enough to outweigh the twofold cost of sex. The advantage arises primarily because sexual reproduction impedes the response to fluctuating epistasis and not because it facilitates the response to directional selection—in fact, sexual reproduction often slows the response to directional selection. Where the cost of sexual reproduction is small, a polymorphism can be maintained between the sexuals and the asexuals. A polymorphism is maintained in which the advantage gained due to recombination is balanced by the cost of sex. At much higher costs of sex, a polymorphism between the asexual and sexual populations can still be maintained if the asexuals do not have a full complement of genotypes available to them, because the asexuals only outcompete those sexuals with which they share the same selected alleles. However, over time we might expect the asexuals to amass the full array of genotypes, thus permanently eliminating sexuals from the population. The sexuals may avoid this fate if the parasite population is finite. Although the model presented here describes the coevolution of parasites with the acquired immune responses of their hosts, it can be compared with other host-parasite models that have more traditionally been used to investigate Red Queen theories of the evolution of sex.     

对亲本受孕时生理状态与子代性比关系的某些理论的检验

在亲本受孕时生理状态与代性比的关系上存在着多种理论。在１９８８－１９９２年期间，作者用实验对其中的营养理论、氧化还原理论、酸碱理论和激素假说的部分观点进行了检验。结果表明：这些理论在某种速度上均具有合理性。作者还发现：这些理论之间是相互联系的。用一系列生理指标来描述双亲受孕时影响子代性比的生理状态，对于通过调节配种时双亲的生理状态来控制子代性比具有重要意义。