ИСТИНА

Transition to asexual reproduction is often regarded as an evolutionary dead end. However the mere existence of ancient asexuals challenges this point of view. Bdelloid rotifers are a large group of putative ancient asexuals that presumably abandoned sexual reproduction tens of millions of years ago. To address the possibility of recombination in the bdelloid rotifer Adineta vaga on a whole-genome scale we sequenced genomes of 10 A. vaga clonal lineages. A decay of linkage disequilibrium with physical distance is observed in A. vaga population suggesting that A. vaga might engage in some form of sexual reproduction.