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From: ahouse@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (Jeremy Ahouse)
Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio
Subject: anisogamy...
Message-ID: <00945449.40578380@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU>
Date: 8 Mar 91 02:10:14 GMT
Sender: usenet@news.cs.brandeis.edu
Reply-To: ahouse@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (Jeremy Ahouse)
Organization: Brandeis University
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Evolution and maintenance of "sex" discussions always leave me wondering:  How
much can be explained by these traits being derived characters?

Certainly in vertebrates that seems reasonable.  With all of the "machinery" in
place that vertebrates have it seems likely that all of the Maynard-Smith cost
benefit analysis is not really the right kind of explanation here.  The fish
examples that break out of the cycle still have stereotyped behaviours in place
and some even mate with other species -- the pull of ancestral character
states...

I think you really have to focus on those organisms where examples of different
"solutions" are possible isogamy:anisogamy/monoecious:diecious.  So plants are
the perfect place to look for origination and maintenance of these
"strategies."  And still it is vital that the artifacts of derived characters
be dealt with.  If a taxon has many representatives their number is not
necessarily linked or caused by the method of reproduction.

So now, what if I suggest that reproductive method is all ancestral... will
that bring a hailstorm of rebuttals?

Jeremy Ahouse
Brandeis Univeristy
Biophysics program