Cytogenetics of Holokinetic Chromosomes and Inverted Meiosis: Keys to the Evolutionary Success of Mites, with Generalizations on Eukaryotes

Abstract

The evolution of sexual reproduction has seen a recent and major resurgence as a topic of interest. Many authors (e.g. Ghiselin 1974, Williams 1975, Maynard Smith 1978, Bell 1982, Shields 1982, Bull 1983, Michod and Levin 1988) have refined the now-familiar arguments that generally cast sexual reproduction as the alternative to the asexual production of genetic clones. As theorists have moved further from the usual cytogenetic models (i.e. humans, mice, fruitflies and maize), we have learned that the many strange genetic systems and breeding biologies of plants, animals and protists blur the distinction between “sexual” and “asexual”.