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.本研究构建了一个模型，用以阐明在资源结构化分布且供给短缺的环境中，多细胞长寿命物种的有性生殖优势机制。该模型融合了有性生殖领域的混岸假说（Tangled Bank Hypothesis）与红皇后假说（Red Queen Hypothesis）的核心特征，具备广泛的适用性。该模型具备明确的生态学内涵，资源与消费者的动态变化通过微分方程进行建模。消费者的生活史特征由依赖于体重的速率参数所决定，该设定契合生态学代谢理论（metabolic theory of ecology）的框架。研究结果表明，尽管存在产生雄性个体带来的两倍生殖成本，但在广泛的参数区间内，有性生殖仍具备显著优势——这一优势来源于其后代可利用未被充分开发的资源所带来的收益。当个体成熟与后代产出发生在亲代资源耗尽之前，但又不会过早时，该优势最为显著，这一结论受制于产生雄性个体的成本约束。因此，该模型表明，在以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，多细胞动物群体将普遍占据有性生殖的主导地位。