 Why do most eukaryotes reproduce sexually and not asexually? While most people ascribe this to pleasure, science does not. At least 1.3 billion years before animals developed neurons capable of assessing pleasure, single-celled protists were already engaged in sexual practices. The leading explanation is that sexual reproduction accelerates adaptation by producing new combinations of genes, yet exactly how sex is maintained remains a mystery. British evolutionary biologist Nick Barton engages the debate on the evolutionary advantage of sex in this video lecture from the 2011 Falling Walls Conference. Recognized by the Royal Society and by the Linnean Society of London with the Darwin-Wallace Medal, awarded every 50 years, Barton employs innovative mathematical models to understand how natural selection acts on large numbers of genes. He discusses how recombination can be favored, despite its obvious costs, its impact on the rate of adaptation, and the consequences for the way we view diversity. (14 minutes)
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