Asexual Reproduction

Asexual populations under fixed resources effectively escaped senescence in this model. Asexual populations under constant resources did not evolve strong age differentiation in genomically encoded survival or reproduction probabilities. Under variable resources, asexual populations failed to reach the low-amplitude population-resource equilibrium observed in large sexual populations. In the asexual model, each individual reproduces independently according to its age-specific reproduction probability, followed by mutation in the offspring genome. Age-dependent mortality in asexual populations under variable resources is interpreted as linked to demographic and environmental instability rather than strong genome-level age differentiation.