Multidimensional epistasis and the transitory advantage of sex.

ABSTRACT: Identifying and quantifying the benefits of sex and recombination is a long-standing problem in evolutionary theory. In particular, contradictory claims have been made about the existence of a benefit of recombination on high dimensional fitness landscapes in the presence of sign epistasis. Here we present a comparative numerical study of sexual and asexual evolutionary dynamics of haploids on tunably rugged model landscapes under strong selection, paying special attention to the temporal development of the evolutionary advantage of recombination and the link between population diversity and the rate of adaptation. We show that the adaptive advantage of recombination on static rugged landscapes is strictly transitory. At early times, an advantage of recombination arises through the possibi

SUBMITTER: Nowak S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4168978 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature