An X-linked meiotic drive allele has strong, recessive fitness costs in female Drosophila pseudoobscura.

ABSTRACT: Selfish 'meiotic drive' alleles are transmitted to more than 50% of offspring, allowing them to rapidly invade populations even if they reduce the fitness of individuals carrying them. Theory predicts that drivers should either fix or go extinct, yet some drivers defy these predictions by persisting at low, stable frequencies for decades. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that drivers are especially costly when homozygous, although empirical tests of this idea are rare and equivocal. Here, we measure the fitness of female Drosophila pseudoobscura carrying zero, one or two copies of the X-linked driver sex ratio (SR). SR had strong negative effects on female offspring production and the probability of reproductive failure, and these effects were la

SUBMITTER: Larner W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6939274 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature