Why and how animals abandon sex? ...

Why and how animals abandon sex? On the causal role of hybridization in triggering asexual reproduction (2017-2019)

Co-investigator: Ing. Karel Halačka, CSc.
Number of Project: 17-09807S
Agency: Czech Science Foundation
Duration: 01. 01. 2017 - 31. 12. 2019

Although sex is ubiquitous among eukaryotes, the genetic machinery controlling production of recombined gametes has been repeatedly disrupted, which lead to emergence of asexually reproducing lineages in all animal and plant phyla. These lineages employ wide array of cytological mechanisms ensuring asexual reproduction and have been intensively studied as attractive model organisms in many biological disciplines. However, the mechanisms that causally initiate the switch from sexual to asexual reproduction remain poorly understood. Because many asexual lineages appear as hybrids, interspecific hybridization is considered one of the hottest candidate mechanisms. Nevertheless, proximate mechanisms via which hybridization could distort hybrids‘ reproductive mode towards asexuality are unknown and it still remains unclear whether interactions between hybridization and asexuality are truly causal. Proposed project will examine causal links between hybridization and asexuality and investigate whether hybrid asexuality relates to the process of species diversification.