The genetics of speciation: insights from Fisher’s Geometric Model
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Publication Date
2016-06-02Journal Title
Evolution
ISSN
0014-3820
Publisher
Wiley
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
AM
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Fraïsse, C., Gunnarsson, P. A., Roze, D., Bierne, N., & Welch, J. (2016). The genetics of speciation: insights from Fisher’s Geometric Model. Evolution https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12968
Abstract
Research in speciation genetics has uncovered many robust patterns in intrinsic reproductive isolation, and fitness landscape models have been useful in interpreting these patterns. Here we examine fitness landscapes based on Fisher’s geometric model. Such landscapes are analogous to models of optimizing selection acting on quantitative traits, and have been widely used to study adaptation and the distribution of mutational effects. We show that, with a few modifications, Fisher’s model can generate all of the major findings of introgression studies (including “speciation genes” with strong deleterious effects, complex epistasis and asymmetry), and the major patterns in overall hybrid fitnesses (including Haldane’s Rule, the speciation clock, heterosis, hybrid breakdown, and male-female asymmetry in the F1). We compare our approach to alternative modelling frameworks that assign fitnesses to genotypes by identifying combinations of incompatible alleles. In some cases, the predictions are importantly different. For example, Fisher’s model can explain conflicting empirical results about the rate at which incompatibilities accumulate with genetic divergence. In other cases, the predictions are identical. For example, the quality of reproductive isolation is little affected by the manner in which populations diverge.
Keywords
reproductive isolation, Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities, snowball effect, hybridization
Relationships
Is supplemented by: https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12968
Sponsorship
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (HYSEA project, ANR-12-BSV7- 0011)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12968
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/256435
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