Evolutionary Arms Race:A Review on the Red Queen Hypothesis

Leigh Van Valen (1973), an evolutionary biologist of the University of Chicago, devised Red Queen hypothesis stating : "for an evolutionary system continuing development is needed in order to maintain its titness relative to the system it is co-evolving with." This hypothesis maintains that biotic interactions are most important drivers of evolutionary changes. On the other hand. Court Jester hypothesis, a class of alternative ideas to Red Queen, regards physicalenvironment perturbations as indicators of major changes in organisms and ecosystem.

From evolutionary point of view, sexual reproduction is not most efficient way of reproducing due to major investment of time and energy for fmding a male. Rather, for spreading genes from one generation to the next asexually reproducing organisms have an edge. Because in sexual reproduction half of the genes from each parent is handed over to the next generation. In this context. Red Queen hypothesis talks about evolution of sex and recombination. This hypothesis describes two similar ideas that (i) co-evolution can lead to situations for which the probability of extinction is relatively constant over millions of years and that (ii) coevolution, more particularly between hosts and parasites, could lead to sustained oscillations in genotype frequencies. According to this hypothesis the species had to "run" (evolve) a leg race instead of an arms race" in order to slay in the same place (extant). The Red Queen hypothesis emphasises the biotic interaction that imposes changes in species and clearly indicates the necessity of sexual reproduction in compaiison with asexual reproduction for stabilising the evolution of sex and recombination.