Evidencing the cost of sexual reproduction in the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis

Sex poses an immediate cost for monogonont rotifers, which combine exclusively asexual reproduction with periods of co-occurrence between asexual and sexual reproduction in their life cycle. Because sex is linked to dormancy, sexual daughters do not contribute to the current growth of a clonal genotype, as they only produce males or diapausing eggs. Therefore, the expectation under the all-else equal assumption (i.e., sexual and asexual females...