How to translate text using browser tools
1 July 2006 ASSORTATIVE MATING FOR FITNESS AND THE EVOLUTION OF RECOMBINATION
Alistair Blachford, Aneil F. Agrawal
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

To understand selection on recombination, we need to consider how linkage disequilibria develop and how recombination alters these disequilibria. Any factor that affects the development of disequilibria, including nonrandom mating, can potentially change selection on recombination. Assortative mating is known to affect linkage disequilibria but its effects on the evolution of recombination have not been previously studied. Given that assortative mating for fitness can arise indirectly via a number of biologically realistic scenarios, it is plausible that weak assortative mating occurs across a diverse set of taxa. Using a modifier model, we examine how assortative mating for fitness affects the evolution of recombination under two evolutionary scenarios: selective sweeps and mutation-selection balance. We find there is no net effect of assortative mating during a selective sweep. In contrast, assortative mating could have a large effect on recombination when deleterious alleles are maintained at mutation-selection balance but only if assortative mating is sufficiently strong. Upon considering reasonable values for the number of loci affecting fitness components, the strength of selection, and the mutation rate, we conclude that the correlation in fitness between mates is unlikely to be sufficiently high for assortative mating to affect the evolution of recombination in most species.

Alistair Blachford and Aneil F. Agrawal "ASSORTATIVE MATING FOR FITNESS AND THE EVOLUTION OF RECOMBINATION," Evolution 60(7), 1337-1343, (1 July 2006). https://doi.org/10.1554/05-502.1
Received: 2 September 2005; Accepted: 1 May 2006; Published: 1 July 2006
JOURNAL ARTICLE
7 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

KEYWORDS
assortative mating
evolution of recombination
modifier model
mutation-selection balance
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top