>Creating new alleles through recombination is thought to be an important
>potential advantage of sexual reproduction.
Recombination would result primarily in new combinations of already
existing alleles which is itself a variation creating process that may be
advantageous. New alleles might be produced via recombination events, but
these would be fairly rare events. New combinations of alleles, on the
other hand, are produced at nearly every recombination event. Thus, whole
chromosomes aren't simply passed from one generation to the next, but they
are shuffled with the mate's chromosomes first.
Some genetic algorithms (yes, I know, one of those evolution in silico
experiments) show significant evolution based solely upon recombination
with no mutations. I think that there's a chapter about this in Steve
Levy's *Artificial Life*.
TG
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt
*This mission critical message was written on a Macintosh with Eudora Pro*
A special message for Macintosh naysayers:
http://www.macworld.com/pages/july.96/Column.2204.html