Asexual reproduction in haploids probably generates more diversity than
sexual reproduction, using good ol' mutation, since you don't have to keep
reshuffling your deck all the time so a variant can go ahead and form a
clone of variants without further ado. Bacteria, e.g. seem to have
managed quite nicely this way; sexuality actually buffers
diversity. An excellent book to read on this topic is S.M. Stanley,
Macroevolution, 1979, Freeman, the chapter on sexual life cycles. The
important innovation that sexual organisms seem to have come up with to
generate diversity is speciation. __ Ursula Goodenough
