Researchers have recently found that sexual reproduction makes can potentially make us much more resistant to infection as we are better able to adapt to the threat of a changing environment. Experts from the University of Stirling has revealed that they are aiming to answer this age-old question have discovered that sex can help the next generation resist infection.
Why Does Sex Make You Resistant To Infection?
According to reports revealed by Daily Mail, on a humanistic point of view, it removes the need for finding a partner, as well as the potentially awkward business of courtship, wooing and falling in love. For humans, it can mean driving flashy cars or wearing revealing clothing, but in the animal world, it's totally a different story. It is already known that sex allows genes to mix, allowing populations to quickly evolve and adapt to changing environment.
In conducting their study, the team of researchers have been found to have studied the waterflea, an organism that can allegedly produce offspring both sexually, and through cloning. Consequently, experts have found that waterfleas which are born through sexual reproduction were twice as resistant to infections as compared to those that were born clonally.
Furthermore, Phys Org reports that through the comparison of clonal and sexual daughters from the same mothers,experts have found that the ever-present need to evade disease can explain why sex persists in the natural world in spite of the costs. Meanwhile, Dr. Stuart Auld, the university's Faculty of Natural Sciences, has further added that sex can potentially explain the presence of the peacock's tail, the stag's antlers and the male bird of paradise's elaborate dance. Ultimately, Dr. Auld, have then concluded that the best explanation we have for why sex evolved is it allows resistance to disease. It evolved to help future generations fight infection.
