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Related Experiment Videos

Asexual but Not Clonal: Evolutionary Processes in Automictic Populations.

Jan Engelstädter1

  • 1School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia j.engelstaedter@uq.edu.au.

Genetics
|April 7, 2017
PubMed
Summary

Automixis, a form of asexual reproduction, restores diploidy after meiosis but reduces heterozygosity. Despite this, automictic populations show unique evolutionary advantages in responding to mutations compared to clonal or sexual populations.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genetics
  • Reproductive Biology

Background:

  • Many asexually reproducing animals utilize automixis, a process involving normal meiosis followed by fusion of meiotic products to restore diploidy.
  • Automixis typically results in a reduction of heterozygosity in offspring compared to the maternal parent.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To derive rates of heterozygosity loss at one and two loci in automictic populations.
  • To develop models for understanding evolutionary processes in automictic populations, including genetic variation, population size, and mutation-selection dynamics.
  • To investigate the impact of associative overdominance and clonal interference on adaptation in automictic systems.

Main Methods:

  • Mathematical derivation of heterozygosity loss rates based on crossover frequency.
Keywords:
automixiscentral fusionmutation–selection balanceneutral genetic variationoverdominanceparthenogenesis

Related Experiment Videos

  • Development of analytical models for neutral genetic variation, effective population size, mutation-selection balance, overdominance, beneficial mutation spread, and selection on crossover rates.
  • Numerical investigations to explore associative overdominance and clonal interference effects.

    • Main Results:

    • Analytical results provide insights into various evolutionary parameters in automictic populations.
    • Numerical simulations show that associative overdominance can maintain heterozygosity, and clonal interference impacts adaptation.
    • Automictic populations demonstrate advantages over clonal and outbreeding sexual populations in their response to beneficial and deleterious mutations.

    Conclusions:

    • Automictic populations, despite reduced gene shuffling, exhibit unique evolutionary strengths.
    • The study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of automixis.
    • Findings have implications for related genetic systems including selfing, clonal reproduction, and mixed reproductive strategies.