DocFilm's video: Evolution Of Sex - Documentary

Birds do it, bees do it, and people do it. Indeed, over 99.9% of eukaryotes reproduce sexually. What, then, are the true costs and benefits of sex? For organisms, sex often means spending huge amounts of energy finding and wooing desirable partners. Within the cell, male and female genomes must recombine without major mistakes. Gametes must promote compatible fusions while upholding barriers between species. And at each step, the conflicting interests of each sex must be delicately negotiated in order to benefit the species as a whole. sexual reproduction—a simple “copy and divide” strategy—at first glance seems both less messy and more efficient. Yet sexual reproduction is by far the dominant mode, which leads researchers to conclude that sex offers some evolutionary advantage. Biologists have been spinning theories about just what that advantage might be for quite some time, but so far there is no single clear answer.