Towards a General Theory of Fitness-Associated Genetic Mixing

来自不同个体的遗传物质的混合是产生新的遗传组合的核心，在进化中起着重要作用。大多数进化模型都隐含地假设遗传混合在任何时候都有一个统一的速率。相反，这项研究将探讨另一种假设：遗传混合是可塑的，其速度取决于有机体的状态，因此不太适合的个体有更高的混合倾向。这项研究将集中在三种混合机制：有性生殖、异交和扩散。研究人员将开发和分析健身相关混合的数学模型和模拟，确定有利于健身相关混合演变的条件，并预测其对适应的影响。这项研究是理解进化基础和塑性遗传变异的意义的必要一步。通过提高我们对遗传变异行为和进化方式的理解，这项研究的结果将影响许多进化和生态模型，并指导未来的实验工作。除了其直接的理论意义外，它还将提高我们对种群如何对变化的环境做出反应的理解-这是保护生物学中至关重要的问题。它还可能提供关于耐药病原体菌株响应药物治疗的加速进化的新见解。

Mixing of genetic material coming from different individuals is central for the generation of new genetic combinations, and plays a major role in evolution. Most evolutionary models implicitly assume that genetic mixing has a uniform rate at all times. In contrast, this research will investigate an alternative hypothesis: that genetic mixing is plastic, its rate depending on the state of the organism, so that less fit individuals have a higher tendency for mixing. The research will concentrate on three mechanisms of mixing: sexual reproduction, outcrossing and dispersal. The investigator will develop and analyze mathematical models and simulations of fitness-associated mixing, identify conditions favoring the evolution of fitness-associated mixing, and predict its implications for adaptation. This research is a necessary step towards understanding the evolutionary basis and the implications of plastic genetic variation. By improving our understanding of the way genetic variation acts and evolves, the results of this research will affect many evolutionary and ecological models, and guide future experimental efforts. In addition to its direct theoretical significance, it would improve our understanding of how populations react to a changing environment--an issue of critical importance in conservation biology. It may also provide new insights regarding the accelerated evolution of drug-resistant pathogen strains in response to drug treatment.