Population structure can reduce clonal interference when sexual reproduction and dispersal are synchronized

Abstract

In populations with limited recombination, clonal interference among beneficial mutations limits the maximum rate of adaptation. Spatial structure slows the spread of beneficial alleles; in purely asexual populations, this increases the amount of clonal interference. Beyond this extreme case, however, it is unclear how spatial structure and recombination interact to determine the amount of clonal interference. This interaction is particularly interesting because dispersal and recombination are often at least partially synchronized in natural populations, both at the individual and population level, as when plants switch from vegetative growth to sexual reproduction or stress responses increase both motility and recombination in microbes. We simulate island models of populations evolving on a smooth fitness landscape and find that synchronized dispersal and sexual reproduction allow them to adapt faster than matched well-mixed populations. This is because the spatial structure preserves genetic diversity, while the synchronization increases the chance that recombination events occur between diverged individuals from different demes, i.e., the pairings where negative linkage disequilibrium can most effectively be reduced.