On the forces that govern clonality versus sexuality in plant communities

Abstract

Although sexuality is considered evolutionarily progressive, clonality is very common in plants and the prevailing means of reproduction in several community types. I discuss what could be the forces that have influenced the selection among sexual versus non-sexual reproduction at community level. I propose that, among others, the probability of self-competition must have been one of the key factors. The probability of meeting one’s own genes for wasteful competition is higher in communities where clonality prevails (and relatively high mean intra-species relatedness is expected), and higher in communities with low species diversity. On the other hand, lower diversity indicates a higher average fitness of species since the (finite) total pool of resources is distributed among fewer population with high density. I show, using four community types with contrasting diversity and clonality that community fitness (average fitness in the assemblage of species) can be expressed as the product of two variables––anti-diversity and degree of sexuality.