The role of advantageous mutations in enhancing the evolution of a recombination modifier.
Although the evolution of recombination is still a major problem in evolutionary genetics, recent theoretical studies have shown that recombination can evolve by breaking down interference ("Hill-Robertson effects") among multiple loci. This leads to selection on a recombination modifier in a population subject to recurrent deleterious mutation. Here, we use computer simulations to investigate the evolution of a recombination modifier under three different scenarios of recurrent mutation in a finite population: (1) mutations are deleterious only, (2) mutations are advantageous only, and (3) there is a mixture of deleterious and advantageous mutations. We also investigate how linkage disequilibrium, the strength of selection acting on a modifier, and effective population size change under the different scenarios. We observe that adding even a small number of advantageous mutations increases the fixation rate of modifiers that increase recombination, especially if the effects of deleterious mutations are weak. However, the strength of selection on a modifier is less than the summed strengths had there been deleterious mutations only and advantageous mutations only.
Hartfield
Matthew
M
Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. m.hartfield@sms.ed.ac.uk
Otto
Sarah P
SP
Keightley
Peter D
PD
D003198:Computer Simulation; D004058:Diffusion; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D056426:Genetic Loci / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics; D023281:Genomics; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium / Q000235:genetics; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D011336:Probability; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012641:Selection, Genetic