A species of rotifer, a small freshwater invertebrate, lost the ability to reproduce sexually millions of years ago. A remarkable feature of its life cycle is the ability to withstand dry conditions. When the rotifer's environment dries out, so does the rotifer, and it can be blown to a new area. Rotifers that land in water will rehydrate and resume an active life. A major pathogen of these rotifers is a species of fungus that cannot survive drying. Some scientists hypothesize that drying rids the rotifers of this pathogen. (a) Design an experimental study to test this hypothesis.

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Welcome back. Here's our next question. What is the advantage of sexual reproduce? Urz over a sexual reproduces when exposed to an unstable environment. Well, let's look through our answer choices. Choice A says sexual Re producers can have more offspring than a sexual re producers. Well this doesn't necessarily have to do with the type of reproduction. So this isn't an advantage of sexual reproduction. So Choice A. Is not correct. Choice B says sexual re producers give genetically diverse offspring, giving them a better chance of survival. Well this is correct. Um A sexual reproduction leads to offspring genetically identical two parents. So in an unstable environment if the environment changes so that the genes that the offspring have are no longer benefit selected against by natural selection, you said they're going to see this drastic reproduction are drastic reduction in the population. Whereas sexual reproduction because it results in genetically diverse offspring. Since the two parents, genes combined and recombined in different ways. If one trait is selected against, you have a diverse set of offspring with many different traits. So offspring with different traits can survive. So Choice B. Is the correct answer here for the advantage of sexual reproduction and unstable environment. In addition unstable environment indicating changing um the variety of different values that will be there present means that if the environment is changing where one trait was adapted before is no longer adaptive, you have a whole variety of different traits there. So if the environment is changing the species can quickly adapt to changing circumstances, Choice C says sexual re producers are more flexible and highly adapted um not highly adapted and a sexually reproducing organism could be highly adapted to a specific environment. But since we're talking about an unstable environment, if that environment changes and those adaptations that were beneficial before are now deleterious in the new circumstances. Um that doesn't you know that that would be a disadvantage even though they were highly adapted to a specific circumstance. So Choice C. Is not our answer. And Choice D. Says sexual re producers can easily move and disperse. Well that's not a specific advantage of sexual reproduction. So that's also not an answer. So again, advantage of sexual reproduce, ear's over a sexual re producers when exposed to an unstable environment, choice, bi sexual Re producers give genetically diverse offspring giving them a better chance of survival. See you in the next video.

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Key Concepts

Asexual Reproduction

Desiccation Tolerance

Pathogen Dynamics