Elbow room hypothesis of advantage of sexuality

The elbow room hypothesis assumes that polymorphism of offspring, which is renewed in every generation because of sexual reproduction, reduces competition amongst siblings. The fact that the offspring of common parents differ in a great many traits means that they have somewhat different ecological, for example food, requirements. Thus, they do not compete together as much as the identical progeny of an asexually reproducing organism.

Was this information useful for you?
The classical Darwinian theory of evolution can explain the evolution of adaptive traits only in asexual organisms. The frozen plasticity theory is much more general: It can also explain the origin and evolution of adaptive traits in both asexual and sexual organisms Read more