What is it about?
Why are there two mating types (sexes)? Why not three or more - especially as this would reduce the degree of incompatibility? We show that mating types have asymmetric roles of signaller and receiver. This tends to limit the spread of novel types
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Why is it important?
Unicellular organisms typically have two mating types (sexes). But some species have 3, 4 ... up to tens or hundreds of types. There are no good explanations to account for this diversity. Our paper provides a simple and general explanation based on the coevolution of signalling systems (signals and their receptors), which can generate diversity but will tend to specialise and drive out less attractive forms.
Perspectives
Higher organisms have two sexes, whereas more simple organisms quite often have multiple forms. This has been a long standing puzzle for evolutionary biologists. We provide an attractive explanation based on gamete signalling.
Prof Nonsense Pomiankowski
University College London
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Gamete signalling underlies the evolution of mating types and their number, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, September 2016, Royal Society Publishing,
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0531.
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