# Sex and Coevolution

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how coevolution influences the advantages of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes using the NKCS model, highlighting the roles of fitness landscape features and evolutionary rates.

## Contribution

It demonstrates how fitness landscape parameters and partner species' evolution rates affect the benefits of sex over asexual reproduction in coevolving eukaryotes.

## Key findings

- Varying landscape ruggedness affects sex benefits.
- Sex is more sensitive to partner evolution rates.
- Landscape size influences coevolutionary outcomes.

## Abstract

It has been suggested that the fundamental haploid-diploid cycle of eukaryotic sex exploits a rudimentary form of the Baldwin effect. This paper uses the well-known NKCS model to explore the effects of coevolution upon the behaviour of eukaryotes. It is shown how varying fitness landscape size, ruggedness and connectedness can vary the conditions under which eukaryotic sex proves beneficial over asexual reproduction in haploids in a coevolutionary context. Moreover, eukaryotic sex is shown to be more sensitive to the relative rate of evolution exhibited by its partnering species than asexual haploids.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1903.07429