10.5061/DRYAD.CM61N
Ho, Eddie K. H.
University of Toronto
Agrawal, Aneil F.
University of Toronto
Data from: The effects of competition on the strength and softness of selection
Dryad
dataset
2012
deleterious mutations
interspecific and intraspecific competition
soft and hard selection
2012-08-22T20:42:00Z
2012-08-22T20:42:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2012.02618.x
132401 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Deleterious alleles are constantly introduced into populations due to
mutation. In subdivided populations, the impact of these mutations depends
on the strength of selection as well as the softness of selection, i.e.,
the extent to which fitness is governed by local rather than global
competition. It is widely appreciated that the intensity and type of
competition will affect selection on deleterious mutations but most
empirical work has focused solely on the effects of competition on
selection strength. However, competition has rarely been studied in the
context of selection ‘softness’ even though competition is at the
conceptual root of soft selection. All other things being equal, theory
predicts that inter- and intraspecific competition have opposing effects
on the softness of selection. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we estimated
the strength and softness of selection in a “baseline” competitive
environment as well as two additional competitive environments
characterized by either additional intra- or interspecific competitors. We
found that competitive environment had little effect on the average
strength of selection. While the softness of selection was affected by the
type of competition, the direction of change varied across tests of
different genes, contrary to expectation. Though the “hard/soft” selection
paradigm implicitly assumes that all individuals are equally sensitive to
the local competitive environment, we found this not to be the case.
Wild-type individuals were more sensitive to changes in the genetic
quality of their local competitors than mutant individuals.
InterIntraCompSoftStrSeln-DataShows the number of surviving adults
(wild-type and mutants) for each treatment of the experiment.