Population genomics of evolutionary conflicts

尽管是在同一个基因组中发现的，不同基因的进化利益，甚至单个基因的突变都可能相互冲突。以植物为例，在繁殖成功方面赋予花粉竞争优势的突变可能对植物生命周期的其他阶段产生有害的副作用。同样地，自私的遗传因素增强了自身的传播能力，可以在种群中传播，尽管可能对生物体产生有害的适应性影响。虽然这些情况在理论上已经得到了很好的描述，并且全基因组序列的日益可用性已经揭示了自私遗传元件在基因组中的优势，但这些冲突对于维持遗传多样性和驱动基因组进化的进化重要性仍然知之甚少，这是本基金的重点。该提案旨在解决几个主要的开放性问题，包括：1)花粉竞争有多少遗传变异，自然选择如何作用于这种变异？2)自私遗传因子是否在植物群体Y染色体的退化中起重要作用？(3)交配系统和倍性（个体拥有的基因组拷贝数）的进化转变是否会影响自私基因元素的进化命运？4)增加基因表达的突变是否通过掩盖有害突变而在人群中传播？

Despite being found within the same genome, the evolutionary interests of different genes, and even mutations within single genes can conflict with each other. In plants for example, mutations that confer a competitive advantage to pollen for reproductive success may have harmful side-effects on other phases of the plant's life-cycle. Similarly, selfish genetic elements, which enhance their own ability to transmit themselves, can spread through populations, despite the potential for harmful fitness effects on the organism. While these cases have been well characterized theoretically, and the growing availability of whole genome sequences has revealed the predominance of selfish genetic elements across genomes, the evolutionary importance of these conflicts for maintaining genetic diversity and driving genome evolution remains poorly understood, and is a focus of this grant. This proposal aims to address several major open questions including: 1) How much genetic variation is there for pollen competition, and how does natural selection act on this variation? 2) Do selfish genetic elements play an important role in the degeneration of Y chromosomes in plant populations?, 3) Do evolutionary transitions in mating system and ploidy (the number of genome copies an individual has) influence the evolutionary fate of selfish genetic elements?, and 4) Do mutations that increase the expression of genes spread through populations by masking harmful mutations? By studying patterns of genome and gene expression variation, we hope to gain important new insights into the importance of evolutionary conflicts in maintaining genetic diversity and structuring the evolution of genomes.