Wilner Daniela, Bonduriansky Russell, Burke Nathan W
Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of New South Wales, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Institute of Cell and Systems Biology of Animals, Department of Biology, Universität Hamburg, Mittelweg 177, Hamburg, 20148, Germany.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2025 Aug 11. doi: 10.1111/brv.70064.
Theory predicts that facultatively asexual animals, which can leverage the advantages of both sexual and asexual reproduction, should outcompete obligately sexual and obligately asexual animals. Yet, paradoxically, obligate sexual reproduction predominates in many animal lineages, while the most flexible form of facultative asexuality (i.e. facultative parthenogenesis) appears to be rare. Recent theoretical work suggests that sexual conflict could help to resolve this paradox. Males that coercively fertilise females' eggs may, in the process, prevent alleles for parthenogenesis from spreading by limiting opportunities for asexual reproduction. Coercive males may also inhibit asexual reproduction by making resistance to sex disproportionately costly for females. In this review, we outline evidence of interactions with males that could impose costs on parthenogenetic females or hinder their ability to reproduce parthenogenetically in diverse animal taxa. The evidence suggests that such interactions between the sexes have the potential to mediate sexual conflict over mating and reproductive mode, both within facultative species and between closely related sexual and asexual taxa. However, the relative costs of sex and parthenogenesis are clearly context dependent, and much remains unknown. The most direct evidence for male inhibition of parthenogenesis comes from stick insects, but several other systems offer promising avenues for further investigation. Further research on the costs of mating and resistance in such systems could shed light on the reasons for the puzzling rarity of facultative parthenogenesis in nature.
理论预测，兼性无性动物能够利用有性生殖和无性生殖的优势，应该会在竞争中胜过专性有性动物和专性无性动物。然而，矛盾的是，专性有性生殖在许多动物谱系中占主导地位，而最灵活的兼性无性生殖形式（即兼性孤雌生殖）似乎很罕见。最近的理论研究表明，性冲突可能有助于解决这一矛盾。强制使雌性交配的雄性在这个过程中，可能会通过限制无性生殖的机会来阻止孤雌生殖的等位基因传播。强制的雄性还可能通过使雌性对性行为的抵抗成本过高，从而抑制无性生殖。在这篇综述中，我们概述了与雄性相互作用的证据，这些相互作用可能会给孤雌生殖的雌性带来成本，或者阻碍它们在不同动物类群中进行孤雌生殖的能力。证据表明，这种性别之间的相互作用有可能在兼性物种内部以及密切相关的有性和无性类群之间，调节关于交配和生殖方式的性冲突。然而，有性生殖和孤雌生殖的相对成本显然取决于具体情况，还有很多未知之处。雄性抑制孤雌生殖最直接的证据来自竹节虫，但其他几个系统也为进一步研究提供了有希望的途径。对这些系统中交配和抵抗成本的进一步研究，可能会揭示自然界中兼性孤雌生殖令人费解的罕见现象的原因。
