If you think that living without sex is not possible and that no animal as a species can survive without sexual reproduction, then you should know about bdelloid rotifers, a microscopic animal that lives in freshwater. and its size is 0.150 to 0.7 mm. To the astonishment of scientists, the organism has managed to survive for 50 million years without sexual reproduction. So much so, that the animal’s avoidance of sexual reproduction led scientists to believe that microscopic animals were never capable of sexual reproduction. But this is not the truth. Recent studies show that ancient bdelloids once had sex.
To understand this further, when scientists selected a particular species of bdelloids – Adineta vaga, and tried to get them to reproduce sexually, they were shocked to find that the animal had lost its sexuality. During the researcher’s experiment, A. vaga’s sex cells could not cross-breed – combining the DNA of both parents by swapping parts, an important step in cell division and scientists concluded that A. Vaga can no longer reproduce sexually. The reason sex cells do not cross is because, having evolved separately through asexual reproduction, the DNA of organisms’ chromosomes had become so separated that they could no longer join.
Losing sexual reproduction could be considered bad news for bdelloids if scientists weren’t amazed by their evolutionary success. Sexual reproduction is considered beneficial from an evolutionary point of view as it combines the DNA of both parents which in turn provides genetic diversity. Diversity means less accumulation of deleterious mutations and more genetic variation, which can provide a larger pool of organisms for natural selection to do its job. Genetic variation may result in more candidates being able to survive environmental changes and therefore take the species forward.
On the other hand, asexual reproduction does not provide genetic variation. This means that if a disease affects only one member of a population, it is likely that it will affect everyone because everyone has the same gene. In short, species that reproduce asexually will not be evolutionary successful. This is where the bdelloids surprised scientists. Differences in their genetic material also revealed unexpected genetic variations. Despite reproducing asexually, they have been able to maintain their genetic diversity and thrive. When scientists A. vaga’s genome – the complete set of genes – they realized that the microbe abnormally shuffles its genes to obtain the same variation as passing it on. In addition, the animal is a notorious gene thief who steals genes from bacteria, fungi, and even plants. The stolen goods contain eight percent of the animal’s genes. Scientists believe that Bdelloids can live without sex for another 40 million years.
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