Darwinian purifying selection versus complementing strategy in Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

Intragenomic recombination (crossover) is a very important evolutionary mechanism. The crossover events are not evenly distributed along the natural chromosomes. Monte Carlo simulations revealed that frequency of recombinations decides about the strategy of chromosomes' and genomes' evolution. In large panmictic populations, under high recombination rate the Darwinian purifying selection operates keeping the fraction of defective genes at the relatively low level. In small populations and under low recombination rate the strategy of complementing haplotypes seems to be more advantageous. Switching between the two strategies has a character of phase transition - it depends on inbreeding coefficient and crossover rate. The critical recombination rate depends also on the size of chromosome. It is also possible, that in one genome some chromosomes could be under complementing while some other under purifying selection. Such situation stabilizes genome evolution and reproduction strategy. It seems that this phenomenon can be responsible for the positive correlation between kinship and fecundity, recently found in the Islander population. When large population is forced to enter the complementing strategy, the phenomenon of sympatric speciation is observed.