Why is there sex—or, more precisely, sexual reproduction? If you're an evolutionary biologist, the answer isn't obvious.

An international research team has shown that parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction, negatively affects the genome evolution of the animals that practice it. In this type of reproduction, ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Why are most organisms sexual? The question of why most species reproduce sexually and others reproduce asexually has stymied biologists for years (particularly since asexual ...

In the course of evolution, animals have repeatedly shifted from sexual to asexual reproduction. The first evidence of the consequences of parthenogenesis – a type of asexual reproduction – on genome ...

Not all species need sperm to fertilize an egg for sexual reproduction. Some species need sperm in order to induce completion of egg nucleus development, but then never use the sperm’s DNA. I describe ...

A team led by biologists at The University of Texas at Arlington has published a study supporting the theory that species that reproduce asexually have more harmful genetic mutations than those ...

Not all creatures need to breed to produce offspring. Animals like zebra sharks and killifish are redefining what scientists thought they knew about asexual reproduction. Among vertebrates, or animals ...

Studying a species of beetle mite, an international research team has demonstrated for the first time that animals can survive over very long periods of time (possibly millions of years) entirely ...

Plant reproduction is highly complex and variable across the kingdom. The emergence of sexual reproduction has contributed to increase plant genetic diversity and enabled the colonisation of new ...

Are you familiar with asexual animals? Asexual animals reproduce without involving sex or traditional fertilization. While this might sound strange, it’s actually quite natural—and even helps many ...