Location:California
Joined:8/9/2008
Posts:1
#1 - Posted: 8/9/2008 1:10 AM
The most important mission of life is to survive time. I don’t remember where I read about that not the strongest species survives over time but the one that can learn to adapt to the new conditions faster.
In the situation of species where every organism clones itself, each individual will have to “learn” by itself how to adapt to the new environmental changes and pass that information to the next generation to avoid extinction. And here I’m not talking about the parent teaching the new generation hunting tricks for a new pray. I’m talking about the ability to survive in colder or wormer climate that before, or with less water, less light, or surviving in fresh water instead of sea water. How about changing color, become poisoned, grow stronger legs to run faster or even grow wings to escape new predators, etc. This requires some changes in the genetic code. Cloning the same genes over again the chances are kind of small for those changes to occur and it will take a long time to adapt.
For organisms that use sex for reproduction the new generation always ends up with a mix of genes from the parents ensuring a larger pool of combinations hence higher chances to have individuals in the new generation better suited for survival. The information is shared between the individuals and the specie could adapt faster.
Organisms are successfully using both methods and seems like the simple and efficient and most suited for the situation is the winning combination if you are to survive. It’s seems like the more evolved the organism the more specialization in sex.
I’m no expert in the field but this is the best I can think of with my current knowledge.