Evolutionary biology of deleterious mutations and sex

在不同形式的生物生命中，无所不在的性和重组表明，有利于基因交换的选择压力是强大而广泛的。了解这种选择的来源不仅对基础科学很重要，而且可能有助于改进生物资源的管理（即农业、渔业、林业、保护）。然而，性和重组的最终原因一直难以捉摸。尽管在理解这一经典问题背后的概念问题方面取得了相当大的进展，但仍存在许多理论和实证问题。拟议的研究概述了几个项目，旨在阐明影响性别进化的不同因素的重要性。具体来说，将发展理论来评估遗传变异的不同来源（例如，有害突变，选择的空间异质性，宿主-寄生虫共同进化）如何促进性别选择。在不同的实验条件下，我们将检验性别和重组对适应度均值和方差的影响。

The ubiquity of sex and recombination across disparate forms of biological life indicate that the selective pressures favouring genetic exchange are powerful and widespread. Understanding this source of selection is not only important to basic science but may allow for improved management of biological resources (i.e., agriculture, fisheries, forestry, conservation). However, the ultimate reasons for sex and recombination have been elusive. Although there has been considerable progress in understanding the conceptual issues underlying this classic problem, many theoretical and empirical questions remain. The proposed research outlines several projects designed to illuminate the importance of different factors affecting the evolution of sex. Specifically, theory will be developed to evaluate how different sources of genetic variation (e.g., deleterious mutation, spatial heterogeneity in selection, host-parasite coevolution) contribute to selection for sex. Empirically, we will test how sex and recombination affect the mean and variance in fitness under different experimental conditions.