scholarly journals How long do Red Queen dynamics survive under genetic drift? A comparative analysis of evolutionary and eco-evolutionary models

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Schenk ◽  
Hinrich Schulenburg ◽  
Arne Traulsen

AbstractBackgroundRed Queen dynamics are defined as long term co-evolutionary dynamics, often with oscillations of genotype abundances driven by fluctuating selection in host-parasite systems. Much of our current understanding of these dynamics is based on theoretical concepts explored in mathematical models that are mostly (i) deterministic, inferring an infinite population size and (ii) evolutionary, thus ecological interactions that change population sizes are excluded. Here, we recall the different mathematical approaches used in the current literature on Red Queen dynamics. We then compare models from game theory (evo) and classical theoretical ecology models (eco-evo), that are all derived from individual interactions and are thus intrinsically stochastic. We assess the influence of this stochasticity through the time to the first loss of a genotype within a host or parasite population.ResultsThe time until the first genotype is lost (“extinction time”), is shorter when ecological dynamics, in the form of a changing population size, is considered. Furthermore, when individuals compete only locally with other individuals extinction is even faster. On the other hand, evolutionary models with a fixed population size and competition on the scale of the whole population prolong extinction and therefore stabilise the oscillations. The stabilising properties of intraspecific competitions become stronger when population size is increased and the deterministic part of the dynamics gain influence. In general, the loss of genotype diversity can be counteracted with mutations (or recombination), which then allow the populations to recurrently undergo negative frequency-dependent selection dynamics and selective sweeps.ConclusionAlthough the models we investigated are equal in their biological motivation and interpretation, they have diverging mathematical properties both in the derived deterministic dynamics and the derived stochastic dynamics. We find that models that do not consider intraspecific competition and that include ecological dynamics by letting the population size vary, lose genotypes – and thus Red Queen oscillations – faster than models with competition and a fixed population size.

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (49) ◽  
pp. 14079-14084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haipeng Li ◽  
Jinggong Xiang-Yu ◽  
Guangyi Dai ◽  
Zhili Gu ◽  
Chen Ming ◽  
...  

Accelerated losses of biodiversity are a hallmark of the current era. Large declines of population size have been widely observed and currently 22,176 species are threatened by extinction. The time at which a threatened species began rapid population decline (RPD) and the rate of RPD provide important clues about the driving forces of population decline and anticipated extinction time. However, these parameters remain unknown for the vast majority of threatened species. Here we analyzed the genetic diversity data of nuclear and mitochondrial loci of 2,764 vertebrate species and found that the mean genetic diversity is lower in threatened species than in related nonthreatened species. Our coalescence-based modeling suggests that in many threatened species the RPD began ∼123 y ago (a 95% confidence interval of 20–260 y). This estimated date coincides with widespread industrialization and a profound change in global living ecosystems over the past two centuries. On average the population size declined by ∼25% every 10 y in a threatened species, and the population size was reduced to ∼5% of its ancestral size. Moreover, the ancestral size of threatened species was, on average, ∼22% smaller than that of nonthreatened species. Because the time period of RPD is short, the cumulative effect of RPD on genetic diversity is still not strong, so that the smaller ancestral size of threatened species may be the major cause of their reduced genetic diversity; RPD explains 24.1–37.5% of the difference in genetic diversity between threatened and nonthreatened species.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Ashby

AbstractParasites can select for sexual reproduction in host populations, preventing replacement by faster growing asexual lineages. This is usually attributed to so-called “Red Queen Dynamics” (RQD), where antagonistic coevolution causes fluctuating selection in allele frequencies, which provides sex with an advantage over asex. However, parasitism may also maintain sex in the absence of RQD when sexual populations are more genetically diverse – and hence more resistant, on average – than clonal populations, allowing sex and asex to stably coexist. While the maintenance of sex due to RQD has been studied extensively, the conditions that allow sex and asex to stably coexist have yet to be explored in detail. In particular, we lack an understanding of how host demography and parasite epidemiology affect the maintenance of sex in the absence of RQD. Here, I use an eco-evolutionary model to show that both population density and the type and strength of virulence are important for maintaining sex, which can be understood in terms of their effects on disease prevalence and severity. In addition, I show that even in the absence of heterozygote advantage, asexual heterozygosity affects coexistence with sex due to variation in niche overlap. These results reveal which host and parasite characteristics are most important for the maintenance of sex in the absence of RQD, and provide empirically testable predictions for how demography and epidemiology mediate competition between sex and asex.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline B. Turner ◽  
Sean W. Buskirk ◽  
Katrina B. Harris ◽  
Vaughn S. Cooper

AbstractNatural environments are rarely static; rather selection can fluctuate on time scales ranging from hours to centuries. However, it is unclear how adaptation to fluctuating environments differs from adaptation to constant environments at the genetic level. For bacteria, one key axis of environmental variation is selection for planktonic or biofilm modes of growth. We conducted an evolution experiment with Burkholderia cenocepacia, comparing the evolutionary dynamics of populations evolving under constant selection for either biofilm formation or planktonic growth with populations in which selection fluctuated between the two environments on a weekly basis. Populations evolved in the fluctuating environment shared many of the same genetic targets of selection as those evolved in constant biofilm selection, but were genetically distinct from the constant planktonic populations. In the fluctuating environment, mutations in the biofilm-regulating genes wspA and rpfR rose to high frequency in all replicate populations. A mutation in wspA first rose rapidly and nearly fixed during the initial biofilm phase but was subsequently displaced by a collection of rpfR mutants upon the shift to the planktonic phase. The wspA and rpfR genotypes coexisted via negative frequency-dependent selection around an equilibrium frequency that shifted between the environments. The maintenance of coexisting genotypes in the fluctuating environment was unexpected. Under temporally fluctuating environments coexistence of two genotypes is only predicted under a narrow range of conditions, but the frequency-dependent interactions we observed provide a mechanism that can increase the likelihood of coexistence in fluctuating environments.


2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1736) ◽  
pp. 20160463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibault Latrille ◽  
Laurent Duret ◽  
Nicolas Lartillot

In humans and many other species, recombination events cluster in narrow and short-lived hot spots distributed across the genome, whose location is determined by the Zn-finger protein PRDM9. To explain these fast evolutionary dynamics, an intra-genomic Red Queen model has been proposed, based on the interplay between two antagonistic forces: biased gene conversion, mediated by double-strand breaks, resulting in hot-spot extinction, followed by positive selection favouring new PRDM9 alleles recognizing new sequence motifs. Thus far, however, this Red Queen model has not been formalized as a quantitative population-genetic model, fully accounting for the intricate interplay between biased gene conversion, mutation, selection, demography and genetic diversity at the PRDM9 locus. Here, we explore the population genetics of the Red Queen model of recombination. A Wright–Fisher simulator was implemented, allowing exploration of the behaviour of the model (mean equilibrium recombination rate, diversity at the PRDM9 locus or turnover rate) as a function of the parameters (effective population size, mutation and erosion rates). In a second step, analytical results based on self-consistent mean-field approximations were derived, reproducing the scaling relations observed in the simulations. Empirical fit of the model to current data from the mouse suggests both a high mutation rate at PRDM9 and strong biased gene conversion on its targets. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Evolutionary causes and consequences of recombination rate variation in sexual organisms’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1874) ◽  
pp. 20172596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi ◽  
Paulo R. Guimarães ◽  
Carlos J. Melián

Studies have shown the potential for rapid adaptation in coevolving populations and that the structure of species interaction networks can modulate the vulnerability of ecological systems to perturbations. Although the feedback loop between population dynamics and coevolution of traits is crucial for understanding long-term stability in ecological assemblages, modelling eco-evolutionary dynamics in species-rich assemblages is still a challenge. We explore how eco-evolutionary feedbacks influence trait evolution and species abundances in 23 empirical antagonistic networks. We show that, if selection due to antagonistic interactions is stronger than other selective pressures, eco-evolutionary feedbacks lead to higher mean species abundances and lower temporal variation in abundances. By contrast, strong selection of antagonistic interactions leads to higher temporal variation of traits and on interaction strengths. Our results present a theoretical link between the study of the species persistence and coevolution in networks of interacting species, pointing out the ways by which coevolution may decrease the vulnerability of species within antagonistic networks to demographic fluctuation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (03) ◽  
pp. 713-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Möhle

We look forwards and backwards in the multi-allelic neutral exchangeable Cannings model with fixed population size and nonoverlapping generations. The Markov chain X is studied which describes the allelic composition of the population forward in time. A duality relation (inversion formula) between the transition matrix of X and an appropriate backward matrix is discussed. The probabilities of the backward matrix are explicitly expressed in terms of the offspring distribution, complementing the work of Gladstien (1978). The results are applied to fundamental multi-allelic Cannings models, among them the Moran model, the Wright-Fisher model, the Kimura model, and the Karlin and McGregor model. As a side effect, number theoretical sieve formulae occur in these examples.


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