Sexual Reproduction

Sexual populations under constant resources evolved high pre-maturity survival and declining post-maturity survival and reproduction modules. Large sexual populations under variable resources eventually behaved similarly to constant-resource populations after equilibrium was reached. The sexual simulations shown use a recombination rate of 0.01. Genetic variance in sexual populations was low before or near maturity and rose after sexual maturation, indicating relaxed purifying selection at later ages. In the sexual model, reproducing individuals undergo chromosome recombination at a fixed recombination frequency before mutation produces newborn genomes.