Sexual reproduction is said to be advantageous because it avoids inbreeding depression. What causes the reduction in fitness associated with inbreeding depression?Increased selfish genetic elementsIncreased heterozygosityIncreased homozygosity of recessive deleterious allelesodhiamb7Increased frequency of recessive deleterious alleles
Question
Sexual reproduction is said to be advantageous because it avoids inbreeding depression. What causes the reduction in fitness associated with inbreeding depression?Increased selfish genetic elementsIncreased heterozygosityIncreased homozygosity of recessive deleterious allelesodhiamb7Increased frequency of recessive deleterious alleles
Solution
The reduction in fitness associated with inbreeding depression is primarily caused by the increased homozygosity of recessive deleterious alleles.
Here's a step-by-step explanation:
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Inbreeding, or mating between closely related individuals, increases the likelihood that offspring will inherit the same allele from both parents. This is known as homozygosity.
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Some alleles are deleterious, meaning they reduce an individual's fitness, or ability to survive and reproduce. These alleles are typically recessive, meaning they only have an effect if an individual inherits two copies of the allele (one from each parent).
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In a large, randomly mating population, these deleterious alleles are often masked by the presence of dominant alleles. However, in a small, inbreeding population, individuals are more likely to inherit two copies of the deleterious allele, leading to a decrease in fitness.
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This decrease in fitness due to the increased homozygosity of recessive deleterious alleles is known as inbreeding depression.
So, while sexual reproduction can increase the genetic diversity of a population and help avoid inbreeding depression, inbreeding can lead to a decrease in fitness due to the increased homozygosity of recessive deleterious alleles.
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