Data from: The ecological advantage of sexual reproduction in multicellular long-lived organisms

We present a model for the advantage of sexual reproduction in multicellular long-lived species in a world of structured resources in short supply. The model combines features of the Tangled Bank and the Red Queen hypothesis of sexual reproduction, and is of broad applicability. The model is ecologically explicit with the dynamics of resources and consumers being modelled by differential equations. The life history of consumers is shaped by body-mass dependent rates as implemented in the metabolic theory of ecology. We find that over a broad range of parameters sexual reproduction wins despite the twofold cost of producing males, due to the advantage of producing offspring that can exploit underutilized resources. The advantage is largest when maturation and production of offspring set in before the resources of the parents become depleted, but not too early, due to the cost of producing males. The model thus leads to the dominance of sexual reproduction in multicellular animals living in complex environments, with resource availability being the most important factor affecting survival and reproduction.

我们提出了一款模型，用以阐释结构化资源匮乏环境中多细胞长寿物种有性生殖（sexual reproduction）的演化优势。该模型融合了缠结岸假说（Tangled Bank hypothesis）与红皇后假说（Red Queen hypothesis）中关于有性生殖的核心特征，具备广泛的适用性。模型具备明确的生态学框架，资源与消费者的动态变化通过微分方程建模；消费者的生活史由体重依赖型速率决定，该设定契合生态学代谢理论（metabolic theory of ecology）。研究发现，尽管存在产生雄性个体的两倍成本，但在广泛的参数区间内，有性生殖仍占据优势，这源于其后代可利用未被充分开发的资源所带来的收益。当个体在亲代资源耗尽前且不过早地启动成熟与后代生产时，该优势最为显著，这一约束源于产生雄性个体的成本。综上，该模型表明，在资源可获得性为影响生存与繁殖的核心因素的复杂环境中，有性生殖将在多细胞动物中占据主导地位。