Submit a preprint

107

The emergence of a birth-dependent mutation rate in asexuals: causes and consequencesuse asterix (*) to get italics
Florian Patout, Raphaël Forien, Matthieu Alfaro, Julien Papaïx, Lionel RoquesPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
2021
<p style="text-align: justify;">In unicellular organisms such as bacteria and in most viruses, mutations mainly occur during reproduction. Thus, genotypes with a high birth rate should have a higher mutation rate. However, standard models of asexual adaptation such as the ‘replicator-mutator equation’ often neglect this generation-time effect. In this study, we investigate the emergence of a positive dependence between the birth rate and the mutation rate in models of asexual adaptation and the consequences of this dependence. We show that it emerges naturally at the population scale, based on a large population limit of a stochastic time-continuous individual-based model with elementary assumptions. We derive a reaction-diffusion framework that describes the evolutionary trajectories and steady states in the presence of this dependence. When this model is coupled with a phenotype to fitness landscape with two optima, one for birth, the other one for survival, a new trade-off arises in the population. Compared to the standard approach with a constant mutation rate, the symmetry between birth and survival is broken. Our analytical results and numerical simulations show that the trajectories of mean phenotype, mean fitness and the stationary phenotype distribution are in sharp contrast with those displayed for the standard model. The reason for this is that the usual weak selection limit does not hold in a complex landscape with several optima associated with different values of the birth rate. Here, we obtain trajectories of adaptation where the mean phenotype of the population is initially attracted by the birth optimum, but eventually converges to the survival optimum, following a hook-shaped curve which illustrates the antagonistic effects of mutation on adaptation.</p>
You should fill this box only if you chose 'All or part of the results presented in this preprint are based on data'. URL must start with http:// or https://
You should fill this box only if you chose 'Scripts were used to obtain or analyze the results'. URL must start with http:// or https://
You should fill this box only if you chose 'Codes have been used in this study'. URL must start with http:// or https://
Generation-time effect; PDE models; Stochastic models; Evolutionary trade-off; Fertility; Survival
NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).
Dynamical systems, Evolutionary Biology, Probability and statistics, Stochastic dynamics
No need for them to be recommenders of PCI Math Comp Biol. Please do not suggest reviewers for whom there might be a conflict of interest. Reviewers are not allowed to review preprints written by close colleagues (with whom they have published in the last four years, with whom they have received joint funding in the last four years, or with whom they are currently writing a manuscript, or submitting a grant proposal), or by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of the review - see the code of conduct
e.g. John Doe [john@doe.com]
2021-06-12 13:59:45
Yuan Lou
Anonymous, Hirohisa Kishino