Final answer:
Sexual reproduction offers advantages like genetic variation, but asexual reproduction can have a faster population growth rate. However, sexual reproduction is more common in multicellular organisms because it allows for greater genetic variation, which is important for survival and reproduction.
Step-by-step explanation:
Sexual reproduction was an early evolutionary innovation after the appearance of eukaryotic cells. The fact that most eukaryotes reproduce sexually is evidence of its evolutionary success. However, there are disadvantages to sexual reproduction such as needing to find a mate and not every individual being capable of reproduction.
Asexual reproduction, on the other hand, offers advantages like not needing a mate and every individual being able to reproduce. In competition, asexual populations have the potential to grow faster, giving them an advantage. Despite these advantages, sexual reproduction is more common among multicellular organisms because it allows for greater genetic variation in offspring, which is important for the survival and reproduction of the population.
In sexual reproduction, different parents combine their unique genomes through crossovers and random assortment, creating new combinations of genes in each generation.