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Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on August 3, 2006.

Genetics, Vol. 174, 1387-1395, November 2006, Copyright © 2006
doi:10.1534/genetics.106.061200

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Cumulative Effects of Spontaneous Mutations for Fitness in Caenorhabditis: Role of Genotype, Environment and Stress

Charles F. Baer*,1, Naomi Phillips*,{dagger}, Dejerianne Ostrow*, Arián Avalos*, Dustin Blanton*, Ashley Boggs*, Thomas Keller*, Laura Levy* and Edward Mezerhane*

* Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-8525 and {dagger} Department of Biology, Arcadia University, Glenside, Pennsylvania 19038-3295

1 Corresponding author: Department of Zoology, University of Florida, P.O. Box 118525, Gainesville, FL 32611-8525.
E-mail: cbaer{at}zoo.ufl.edu

It is often assumed that the mutation rate is an evolutionarily optimized property of a taxon. The relevant mutation rate is for mutations that affect fitness, U, but the strength of selection on the mutation rate depends on the average effect of a mutation. Determination of U is complicated by the possibility that mutational effects depend on the particular environmental context in which the organism exists. It has been suggested that the effects of deleterious mutations are typically magnified in stressful environments, but most studies confound genotype with environment, so it is unclear to what extent environmental specificity of mutations is specific to a particular starting genotype. We report a study designed to separate effects of species, genotype, and environment on the degradation of fitness resulting from new mutations. Mutations accumulated for >200 generations at 20° in two strains of two species of nematodes that differ in thermal sensitivity. Caenorhabditis briggsae and C. elegans have similar demography at 20°, but C. elegans suffers markedly reduced fitness at 25°. We find little evidence that mutational properties differ depending on environmental conditions and mutational correlations between environments are close to those expected if effects were identical in both environments.

Key Words: mutation accumulation (MA) • mutation rate • mutational variance • mutational correlation • nematode




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