On the evolutionary benefit of recombination: progress acceleration or degradation slowdown?

The article presents the author's proposed classification of hypotheses explaining the positive role of genetic recombination induced by sexual reproduction for biological evolution. It has been hypothesized that both progressive and conservative theories may be proper, but they have to be applied to different stages of a species' evolutionary history. The results of computational experiments with an agent-based simulation model are presented to determine the "optimal" number of sexes for quickly achieving the genotype of maximum fitness under natural selection.