ArticleEvolution; international journal of organic evolution2009
Sexual partners for the stressed: facultative outcrossing in the self-fertilizing nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.
Article in Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
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Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mating strategies in Caenorhabditis elegans populations are determined by male developmental history.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- Reduced gravity and muon flux absence affectMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Parental-effect gene-drive elements under partial selfing, or why do Caenorhabditis genomes have hyperdivergent regions?Genetics · 2025Article
- Studying the mechanisms of neurodegeneration:Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2025Review
- Life history in Caenorhabditis elegans: from molecular genetics to evolutionary ecology.Genetics · 2024Review
- Robustness and variability inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Parental-effect gene-drive elements under partial selfing, or why dobioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- The MAB-5/Hox family transcription factor is important for Caenorhabditis elegans innate immune response to Staphylococcus epidermidis infection.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Article
- Outcrossing inEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Inheritance of Stress Responses via Small Non-Coding RNAs in Invertebrates and Mammals.Epigenomes · 2023Review
- The effect of stress on rates of asexual reproduction in an invasive planarian.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2023Article
- AbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Multigenerational downregulation of insulin/IGF-1 signaling in adulthood improves lineage survival, reproduction, and fitness in Caenorhabditis elegans supporting the developmental theory of ageing.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Male frequency inEvolutionary applications · 2022Article
- Mitonuclear Mismatch is Associated With Increased Male Frequency, Outcrossing, and Male Sperm Size in Experimentally-EvolvedFrontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Microplastics and Their Impact on Reproduction-Can we Learn From theFrontiers in toxicology · 2022Review
- Virus infection modulates male sexual behaviour in Caenorhabditis elegans.Molecular ecology · 2021Article
- Article
- Natural Variation and Genetic Determinants ofGenetics · 2019Article
- Males, Outcrossing, and Sexual Selection inGenetics · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Sexual reproduction shuffles genetic variation, potentially enhancing the evolutionary response to environmental change. Many asexual organisms respond to stress by generating facultative sexual reproduction, presumably as a means of escaping the trap of low genetic diversity. Self-fertilizing organisms are subject to similar genetic limitations: the consistent loss of genetic diversity within lineages restricts the production of variation through recombination. Selfing organisms may therefore benefit from a similar shift in mating strategy during periods of stress. We determined the effects of environmental stress via starvation and passage through the stress-resistant dauer stage on mating system dynamics of Caenorhabditis elegans, which reproduces predominantly through self-fertilization but is capable of outcrossing in the presence of males. Starvation elevated male frequencies in a strain-specific manner through differential male survival during dauer exposure and increased outcrossing rates after dauer exposure. In the most responsive strain, the mating system changed from predominantly selfing to almost exclusively outcrossing. Like facultative sex in asexual organisms, facultative outcrossing in C. elegans may periodically facilitate adaptation under stress. Such a shift in reproductive strategy should have a major impact on evolutionary change within these populations and may be a previously unrecognized feature of other highly selfing organisms.
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