Selfing Promotes Spread and Introgression of Segregation Distorters in Hermaphroditic Plants.

ABSTRACT: Segregation distorters (SDs) are genetic elements that distort the Mendelian segregation ratio to favor their own transmission and are able to spread even when they incur fitness costs on organisms carrying them. Depending on the biology of the host organisms and the genetic architecture of the SDs, the population dynamics of SDs can be highly variable. Inbreeding is considered an effective mechanism for inhibiting the spread of SDs in populations, and can evolve as a defense mechanism against SDs in some systems. However, we show that inbreeding in the form of selfing in fact promotes the spread of SDs acting as pollen killers in a toxin-antidote system in hermaphroditic plants by two mechanisms: (i) By reducing the effective recombination rate between killer and antidote loci in the two-

SUBMITTER: Wang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11226791 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature