Reproductive systems of myxomycetes: How does evolution shape the relative proportion of sexual and asexual reproduction in species that are able to do both?

有性生殖的可持续性是矛盾的，因为与无性生殖相比，有性生殖有许多直接的成本。进化是如何塑造那些既能有性繁殖又能无性繁殖的物种的相对比例的？我们将使用无细胞黏菌（黏菌，阿米巴虫）来研究这个问题，这是一组常见和广泛存在的单细胞生物，既有有性生命周期，也有完全无性生命周期。两者都以宏观子实体的形成而告终。因为它们代表双亲的后代，从子实体中释放出的数百万孢子将成为识别自然界中发生的繁殖模式的工具。我们将使用不同的方法并开发其他方法-细胞周期分析和分子工具，如基于SSU和its的系统发育，微卫星和其他标记来研究自然界中选定物种的有性繁殖与无性繁殖的比率。我们将提供大量的经验数据，以及克隆和性的系统发育、生态和系统地理模式。我们旨在建立的模型将考虑到有限和空间划分的种群，并将解决性别在早期真核生物分化群体的自然种群中的进化影响。

The sustainability of sexual reproduction is paradoxical since it has many immediate costs compared to asexual reproduction. How does evolution shape the relative proportion of sexual and asexual reproduction in species that are able to do both? We will investigate this question using the acellular slime-moulds (Myxomycetes, Amoebozoa), a group of common and widespread unicellular organisms that have a sexual as well as an entirely asexual life cycle. Both culminate with the formation of macroscopic fruiting bodies. Because they represent the offspring of two parents, the millions of spores released from the fruiting bodies will be a tool to identify which modes of reproduction occur in nature. We will use different methods and develop others – cell-cycle analysis and molecular tools such as SSU and ITS-based phylogenies, microsatellites and other markers to investigate the rate of sexual versus asexual reproduction in selected species in nature. We will present a substantial set of empirical data along with phylogenetic, ecological and phylogeographic patterns of clonality and sexuality. The models we aim to establish will take into account finite and spatially delimited populations, and will address the evolutionary impact of sex in natural populations of an early diverging group of eukaryotes.