Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases
-
Explaining the adaptive value of sex is one of the great outstanding problems in biology. The challenge comes from the difficulty in identifying the benefits provided by sex, which must outweigh the substantial costs of sex. Here, we consider the adaptive value of sex in viruses, bacteria and fungi, and particularly the information available on the adaptive role of sex in pathogenic microorganisms. ⋯ However, in the long-term, sex may help get rid of mutations, increase the rate of adaptation of the population, and, in pathogens, may infrequently create new infective strains. An additional general issue about sex illustrated by pathogens is that some of the most interesting consequences of sex are not necessarily the reasons for which sex evolved. For example, antibiotic resistance may be transferred by bacterial sex, but this transfer is probably not the reason sex evolved in bacteria.