Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology

Department of Biology and Biochemistry, Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath, Bath, UK

Publications

• Research Article   
  Selection Pressure Benefits Low-Fitness Individuals and Mitigates the Costs of Sex and Recombination
  Author(s): Yifei Wang* and Nick Priest
  
  The maintenance of sex has long been a mystery to evolutionary biology. Though meiotic recombination helps purge deleterious mutations and has a key role in generating evolutionary innovations, it is not clear that these benefits can recoup costs of sex and recombination. By employing Wagner’s genetic regulatory network (GRN) model, in this paper, we have been able to test how selection pressure affects the underlying evolutionary dynamics in sexual lineages. In the first study we find that, compared with asexual lineages, low-fitness sexual lineages can gain a higher benefit when they are subject to higher selection pressure, especially at the early stage. These indicate that selection pressure can facilitate a fast adaptation for low-fitness individuals via recombination. In the second study where we include both the recombination cost and the twofo.. Read More»
  

  Abstract PDF