Perry, Motty, Reny, Philip J. and Robson, Arthur J. (2017) Why sex? and why only in pairs? The Economic Journal, 127 (607). pp. 2730-2743. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12364

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Abstract

Understanding the purpose of sex is a fundamental unresolved problem in evolutionary biology. The difficulty is not that there are too few theories of sex, the difficulty is that there are too many and none stand out. To distinguish between theories, we ask: Why are there no triparental species with offspring composed of the genetic material of three individuals? A successful theory should confer an advantage to biparental sex over asexual reproduction without conferring an even greater advantage to triparental sex. Of two leading theories (red queen and mutational) we show that only one is successful in this sense.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Sex
Journal or Publication Title:	The Economic Journal
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
ISSN:	0013-0133
Official Date:	December 2017
Dates:	Date Event December 2017 Published 1 March 2016 Available 1 March 2016 Accepted
Volume:	127
Number:	607
Page Range:	pp. 2730-2743
DOI:	10.1111/ecoj.12364
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	Israel Science Foundation (ISF), Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC), National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF), Canada Research Chairs (CRC), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Grant number:	0321548 (ISF), ES/K006347/1 (ESRC), SES-1227506 (NSF)

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