Figure 2. Fitness of sexually and asexually derived offspring from adapting and control populations.

Naturally occurring sexual and asexual eggs are directly isolated from populations; lifetime reproduction is measured on the third clonal generation in the same environment from which the eggs are isolated (red, Environment A; black, Environment B). (A) Control populations in Environment A; (B) control populations in Environment B; (C) populations adapting to Environment A (B→A); (D) populations adapting to Environment B (A→B); sexual and asexuals were assayed at the same time as each other each week but points have been offset for clarity. Each data point represents the average number of offspring of five clonal individuals per genotype of third generation females that were hatched from eggs isolated from the experimental populations. In adapting populations, sexually derived offspring are significantly more fit than asexually derived offspring during the early stages of adaptation but become significantly less fit after adaptation plateaus (see Table S1 for statistics). (E) The ratio of the mean fitness of sexual and asexually produced offspring. Genotypes from sexual eggs are represented by open symbols (dashed lines connect mean fitness of five replicate populations across time points) and genotypes from asexual eggs are represented by filled symbols (solid lines connect mean fitness of five replicate populations across time points).