Negative frequency dependent selection contributes to the maintenance of a global polymorphism in mitochondrial DNA

BMC Evolutionary Biology

article

Kurbalija Novičić, Zorana¹  Sayadi, Ahmed¹  Jelić, Mihailo³  Arnqvist, Göran¹ 

[1] Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Center, Uppsala University;Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University Hospital;Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade

关键词: Balancing selection;    Mitochondria;    mtDNA;    Polymorphism;    Negative frequency dependent selection;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-020-1581-2

学科分类：护理学

来源: BioMed Central

【 摘 要 】

Understanding the forces that maintain diversity across a range of scales is at the very heart of biology. Frequency-dependent processes are generally recognized as the most central process for the maintenance of ecological diversity. The same is, however, not generally true for genetic diversity. Negative frequency dependent selection, where rare genotypes have an advantage, is often regarded as a relatively weak force in maintaining genetic variation in life history traits because recombination disassociates alleles across many genes. Yet, many regions of the genome show low rates of recombination and genetic variation in such regions (i.e., supergenes) may in theory be upheld by frequency dependent selection. We studied what is essentially a ubiquitous life history supergene (i.e., mitochondrial DNA) in the fruit fly Drosophila subobscura, showing sympatric polymorphism with two main mtDNA genotypes co-occurring in populations world-wide. Using an experimental evolution approach involving manipulations of genotype starting frequencies, we show that negative frequency dependent selection indeed acts to maintain genetic variation in this region. Moreover, the strength of selection was affected by food resource conditions. Our work provides novel experimental support for the view that balancing selection through negative frequency dependency acts to maintain genetic variation in life history genes. We suggest that the emergence of negative frequency dependent selection on mtDNA is symptomatic of the fundamental link between ecological processes related to resource use and the maintenance of genetic variation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY|CC0