Abstract
We’ve seen that unicellular species learned in the early dawn of life that sex gave them a leg up on survival in a changing world. At first they did it by clinging together while transferring genetic material. But it was not long, perhaps only a few million years, before they found a more efficient way of doing it. The new way was to use couriers—gametes—to carry on the work of transferring genes to their progeny. The new way proved to be the most durable innovation in the history of life since the invention of sex. The old familiar way of reshuffling their genes accomplished the purpose, but it was clumsy and often wasteful of precious cytoplasm. They did not precipitately switch to the new technique. Many of them continued with the old way for a long time, even after taking on the new.
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© 1994 Kenneth Maxwell
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Maxwell, K. (1994). The Gametes. In: The Sex Imperative. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5988-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5988-1_4
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