Question

Page 2 of 2 4. The Red Queen character in the classic book Alice in Wonderland stated, "It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place." The term has been applied to help explain why we see so much sexual reproduction in organisms, even when the environment is fairly stable. Explain "The Red Queen Hypothesis" of sexual reproduction in fairly stable conditions, and apply to humans and to an insect like a grasshopper or a spider.

Answer 1

According to the Red Queen hypothesis, organisms tend to constantly adapt to the changing environment in order to maintain their stability. It has been observed that when organisms are exposed to changing environmental conditions, they undergo vigorous sexual reproduction such that new genetic combinations occur in the progeny which might confer upon them a better chance of survival.

Even in fairly stable conditions, The Red Queen hypothesis is apt as organisms mainly evolve to survive against opposing organisms such as predators or parasites. For example, in the case of sickle cell anemia disease, the humans who are homozygous recessive for sickle cell anemia are affected by the disease while the homozygous and heterozygous individuals are unaffected . an additional advantage of the heterozygotes is that they have a selective advantage against malaria which is common in Africa. So the number of individuals who were heterozygous for sickle cell anemia allele (carriers) was observed more in number in Africa.

In the case of grasshoppers or spiders, it has been observed that when they are attacked by parasites ; they sexually reproduce more so that progeny has some genetic recombination event that can help them survive against the parasite and proliferate.