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Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on July 5, 2005.

Genetics, Vol. 171, 1597-1604, December 2005, Copyright © 2005
doi:10.1534/genetics.105.045302

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Cost of Interacting With Sexual Partners in a Facultative Sexual Microbe

Jianping Xu1

Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada and Institute of Tropical Medicine, Hainan Medical College, Haikao, Hainan Province, People's Republic of China

1 Address for correspondence: Department of Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Life Sciences Bldg., Room 218, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada.
E-mail: jpxu{at}mcmaster.ca

The widespread occurrence of sexual organisms despite the high costs of sex has long intrigued biologists. The best-known costs are the twofold cost of producing males and the cost associated with producing traits to attract mates and to interact with mating partners, such as exaggerated sexual behaviors and morphological modifications. These costs have been inferred from studies of plants and animals but are thought to be absent in facultative sexual microbes. Here, using the facultative sexual fungus Cryptococcus neoformans, I provide experimental evidence showing that: (i) interactions with active sexual partners can be costly for vegetative fitness in a facultative sexual microbe; (ii) this cost is positively correlated to mating ability; (iii) this cost is composed of at least two distinct components, the cost of producing mating signals that exert effects on mating partners and that associated with responding to active mating partners; and (iv) extended asexual reproduction can reduce both components of the cost. This cost must have been compensated for by the production of zygotes and sexual spores to allow the initial evolution and spread of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes.




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