Metapopulation dynamics of sexual and parthenogenetic hermaphrodites

Institute of Animal Evolution and Ecology, University of Münster, Germany

Ružica Bruvo

Ružica Bruvo

Even though asexual reproduction implies faster population growth, it is fairly rare in nature. Theoretical studies, stressing the advantage of sex in creating variability, mostly compared pure sexual and clonal populations that do not directly interact and are otherwise equal. I use the freshwater planarian Schmidtea polychroa as a model system in which both forms can coexist. These organisms are hermaphroditic and their populations are spatially structured, which potentially results in complex dynamics. Motivated by these observations, I aim to explore the influence of metapopulation structure on the dynamics of coexistence of sexual and asexual hermaphrodites.



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Last edited: 25 March 2016

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