Multiple Mating But Not Recombination Causes Quantitative Increase in Offspring Genetic Diversity for Varying Genetic Architectures
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Roland C. Deutsch, Assistant Professor (Creator)
- Olav Rueppell, Associate Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: Explaining the evolution of sex and recombination is particularly intriguing for some species of eusocial insects because
they display exceptionally high mating frequencies and genomic recombination rates. Explanations for both phenomena
are based on the notion that both increase colony genetic diversity, with demonstrated benefits for colony disease
resistance and division of labor. However, the relative contributions of mating number and recombination rate to colony
genetic diversity have never been simultaneously assessed. Our study simulates colonies, assuming different mating
numbers, recombination rates, and genetic architectures, to assess their worker genotypic diversity. The number of loci has
a strong negative effect on genotypic diversity when the allelic effects are inversely scaled to locus number. In contrast,
dominance, epistasis, lethal effects, or limiting the allelic diversity at each locus does not significantly affect the model
outcomes. Mating number increases colony genotypic variance and lowers variation among colonies with quickly
diminishing returns. Genomic recombination rate does not affect intra- and inter-colonial genotypic variance, regardless of
mating frequency and genetic architecture. Recombination slightly increases the genotypic range of colonies and more
strongly the number of workers with unique allele combinations across all loci. Overall, our study contradicts the argument
that the exceptionally high recombination rates cause a quantitative increase in offspring genotypic diversity across one
generation. Alternative explanations for the evolution of high recombination rates in social insects are therefore needed.
Short-term benefits are central to most explanations of the evolution of multiple mating and high recombination rates in
social insects but our results also apply to other species.
Multiple Mating But Not Recombination Causes Quantitative Increase in Offspring Genetic Diversity for Varying Genetic Architectures
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Language: English
- Date: 2012
- Keywords
- genetic diversity, biology, genetic architectures, eusocial insects, evolution, insect mating genetic recombination