Epistasis, Mutational Contingency, and the Divergence of Populations Under Uniform Selection
Date of Graduation
Spring 2001
Degree
Master of Science in Biology
Department
Biology
Committee Chair
John Heywood
Abstract
The importance of epistasis in adaptive evolution is not well understood. Epistasis plays a vital role in many models of reproductive isolation, however, and its ubiquity is evidenced by hybrid breakdown in recombinants produced by populations that have diverged. In this thesis I examine the potential for divergence of populations due to a process I call mutational contingency, which is an extension of the Dobzhansky-Muller speciation model to more than two loci. I used computer algorithms to simulate evolution on fitness landscapes that are complex due to epistatic interactions between as many as six loci. Genotypic fitness landscapes were generated using Kauffman's NK model and a model based on the traditional additive ANOVA used for partitioning genotypic variance. I found that epistatic interactions among as few as five loci affecting fitness virtually guarantees divergence of populations, but that random epistasis is unlikely to generate strong reproductive isolation. I propose a model with one major gene and multiple modifier genes that generates fitness landscapes that promote reproductive isolation.
Subject Categories
Biology
Copyright
© Michael Dickerson
Recommended Citation
Dickerson, Michael, "Epistasis, Mutational Contingency, and the Divergence of Populations Under Uniform Selection" (2001). MSU Graduate Theses. 2393.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/2393
Dissertation/Thesis
