My take is that it boils down to increasing the probability of fertilization, primarily in our early eukaryotic ancestors, in which sexual reproduction first evolved.
On the level of gametes (the reproductive cells), it's about the difference between isogamy (gametes being the same) and anisogamy (involving a larger and a smaller gamete, which are then by definition are the female egg cell and male sperm cell). The egg cells provide almost everything the eventual zygote needs to develop, while the main role of the sperm cell is to transport a set of genes t...
Yeah, this is pretty much the explanation I'm familiar with.
Thanks for the encouragement.
I've come across your work, but have to admit that I've only read parts of it so far. I'm still in the process of catching up to the state of the art.
Probably too late, but I wanted to submit this:
https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/8JQQLkqjTPka9mJ4K/belief-alignment
Yes, but the distinction between gametes had to evolve first from asexual, i.e., undifferentiated reproduction, while hermaphroditism requires some added complexities, as it has to combine both sexes in a way that works. And as long as divided sexes work well enough, there isn't much selection pressure to go that route.
As for why this is more common in plants, I'm intuitively guessing that there are a bunch of issues involved that I'm not familiar with either. But a major driver is probably that (land) plants are sessile and tend to require some space for ... (read more)