LIMITS TO THE ADVANTAGE OF RECOMBINATION IN INCREASING THE RATE OF INCORPORATION OF FAVORABLE MUTANTS

Dennis Nyberg ¹

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, Illinois 60680

The advantage of recombination in increasing the rate of incorporation of favorable mutants is shown to disappear for large NU if substitution is occurring at only two loci. Recombination will, on the average, destroy all double favorable individuals in a haploid population until the product of the frequencies of the single favorable mutants exceeds 1/N. As NU increases there is an increasing probability of the occurrence of the double favorable my mutation alone. Recombination provides a significant advantage in the rate of incorporation of favorable mutants only if 2 s/lnN<NU<2c when substitution is occurring at only two loci. If substitution is occurring at more than two loci the recombining population apparently has a substantial advantage for large NU.