In the natural world, sex prevails, despite its costs. Although much effort has been dedicated to identifying the intrinsic costs of sex (e.g., the cost of males), few studies have identified the ecological fitness consequences of sex. Furthermore, correlated biological traits that differ between sexuals and asexuals may alter these costs, or even render the typical costs of sex irrelevant. We conducted a large‐scale, multisite, reciprocal transplant using multiple sexual and asexual genotypes of a native North American wildflower to show that sexual genotypes have reduced lifetime fitness, despite lower herbivory. We separated the effects of sex from those of hybridity, finding that overwinter survival is elevated in asexuals regardless of hybridity, but herbivores target hybrid asexuals more than nonhybrid asexual or sexual genotypes. Survival is lowest in homozygous sexual lineages, implicating inbreeding depression as a cost of sex. Our results show that the consequences of sex are shaped not just by sex itself, but by complex natural environments, correlated traits, and the identity and availability of mates.

中文翻译：

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在复杂的自然环境中确定性的健身后果

在自然界，尽管付出了代价，性仍占上风。尽管已付出很多努力来确定性的内在代价（例如男性的代价），但很少有研究确定性的生态适应性后果。此外，性与无性之间不同的相关生物学特性可能会改变这些成本，甚至使典型的性成本变得无关紧要。我们使用了北美本地野花的多种有性和无性基因型进行了大规模，多部位，互惠的移植，以表明尽管草食性较低，但性基因型却降低了其一生的适应性。我们将性别的影响与杂种的影响分开，发现无论杂种如何，无性恋者的越冬存活率均得到提高，但草食动物对杂种无性生殖的攻击要比非杂种无性或性基因型更多。纯合性世系中的存活率最低，这意味着近亲抑郁是性行为的代价。我们的研究结果表明，性的后果不仅受性本身的影响，而且还受复杂的自然环境，相关性状以及配偶的身份和可利用性的影响。