@misc{9772,
  author       = {Trubenova, Barbora and Novak, Sebastian and Hager, Reinmar},
  publisher    = {Public Library of Science},
  title        = {{Description of the agent based simulations}},
  doi          = {10.1371/journal.pone.0126907.s003},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1542,
  abstract     = {The theory of population genetics and evolutionary computation have been evolving separately for nearly 30 years. Many results have been independently obtained in both fields and many others are unique to its respective field. We aim to bridge this gap by developing a unifying framework for evolutionary processes that allows both evolutionary algorithms and population genetics models to be cast in the same formal framework. The framework we present here decomposes the evolutionary process into its several components in order to facilitate the identification of similarities between different models. In particular, we propose a classification of evolutionary operators based on the defining properties of the different components. We cast several commonly used operators from both fields into this common framework. Using this, we map different evolutionary and genetic algorithms to different evolutionary regimes and identify candidates with the most potential for the translation of results between the fields. This provides a unified description of evolutionary processes and represents a stepping stone towards new tools and results to both fields. },
  author       = {Paixao, Tiago and Badkobeh, Golnaz and Barton, Nicholas H and Çörüş, Doğan and Dang, Duccuong and Friedrich, Tobias and Lehre, Per and Sudholt, Dirk and Sutton, Andrew and Trubenova, Barbora},
  journal      = {Journal of Theoretical Biology},
  pages        = {28 -- 43},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  title        = {{Toward a unifying framework for evolutionary processes}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.jtbi.2015.07.011},
  volume       = {383},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{2252,
  abstract     = {The pattern of inheritance and mechanism of sex determination can have important evolutionary consequences. We studied probabilistic sex determination in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, which was previously shown to cause evolution of skewed sex ratios. We find that the genetic background alters the sex determination patterns of mat alleles in heterozygotes and that allelic interaction can differentially influence the expression probability of the 7 sexes. We quantify the dominance relationships between several mat alleles and find that A-type alleles, which specify sex I, are indeed recessive to B-type alleles, which are unable to specify that sex. Our results provide additional support for the presence of modifier loci and raise implications for the dynamics of sex ratios in populations of T. thermophila.},
  author       = {Phadke, Sujal and Paixao, Tiago and Pham, Tuan and Pham, Stephanie and Zufall, Rebecca},
  issn         = {0022-1503},
  journal      = {Journal of Heredity},
  number       = {1},
  pages        = {130 -- 135},
  publisher    = {Oxford University Press},
  title        = {{Genetic background alters dominance relationships between mat alleles in the ciliate Tetrahymena Thermophila}},
  doi          = {10.1093/jhered/est063},
  volume       = {105},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{2168,
  abstract     = {Many species have an essentially continuous distribution in space, in which there are no natural divisions between randomly mating subpopulations. Yet, the standard approach to modelling these populations is to impose an arbitrary grid of demes, adjusting deme sizes and migration rates in an attempt to capture the important features of the population. Such indirect methods are required because of the failure of the classical models of isolation by distance, which have been shown to have major technical flaws. A recently introduced model of extinction and recolonisation in two dimensions solves these technical problems, and provides a rigorous technical foundation for the study of populations evolving in a spatial continuum. The coalescent process for this model is simply stated, but direct simulation is very inefficient for large neighbourhood sizes. We present efficient and exact algorithms to simulate this coalescent process for arbitrary sample sizes and numbers of loci, and analyse these algorithms in detail.},
  author       = {Kelleher, Jerome and Etheridge, Alison and Barton, Nicholas H},
  journal      = {Theoretical Population Biology},
  pages        = {13 -- 23},
  publisher    = {Academic Press},
  title        = {{Coalescent simulation in continuous space: Algorithms for large neighbourhood size}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.tpb.2014.05.001},
  volume       = {95},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{2169,
  author       = {Barton, Nicholas H and Novak, Sebastian and Paixao, Tiago},
  journal      = {PNAS},
  number       = {29},
  pages        = {10398 -- 10399},
  publisher    = {National Academy of Sciences},
  title        = {{Diverse forms of selection in evolution and computer science}},
  doi          = {10.1073/pnas.1410107111},
  volume       = {111},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{2170,
  abstract     = { Short-read sequencing technologies have in principle made it feasible to draw detailed inferences about the recent history of any organism. In practice, however, this remains challenging due to the difficulty of genome assembly in most organisms and the lack of statistical methods powerful enough to discriminate between recent, nonequilibrium histories. We address both the assembly and inference challenges. We develop a bioinformatic pipeline for generating outgroup-rooted alignments of orthologous sequence blocks from de novo low-coverage short-read data for a small number of genomes, and show how such sequence blocks can be used to fit explicit models of population divergence and admixture in a likelihood framework. To illustrate our approach, we reconstruct the Pleistocene history of an oak-feeding insect (the oak gallwasp Biorhiza pallida), which, in common with many other taxa, was restricted during Pleistocene ice ages to a longitudinal series of southern refugia spanning the Western Palaearctic. Our analysis of sequence blocks sampled from a single genome from each of three major glacial refugia reveals support for an unexpected history dominated by recent admixture. Despite the fact that 80% of the genome is affected by admixture during the last glacial cycle, we are able to infer the deeper divergence history of these populations. These inferences are robust to variation in block length, mutation model and the sampling location of individual genomes within refugia. This combination of de novo assembly and numerical likelihood calculation provides a powerful framework for estimating recent population history that can be applied to any organism without the need for prior genetic resources.},
  author       = {Hearn, Jack and Stone, Graham and Bunnefeld, Lynsey and Nicholls, James and Barton, Nicholas H and Lohse, Konrad},
  journal      = {Molecular Ecology},
  number       = {1},
  pages        = {198 -- 211},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{Likelihood-based inference of population history from low-coverage de novo genome assemblies}},
  doi          = {10.1111/mec.12578},
  volume       = {23},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{2174,
  abstract     = {When polygenic traits are under stabilizing selection, many different combinations of alleles allow close adaptation to the optimum. If alleles have equal effects, all combinations that result in the same deviation from the optimum are equivalent. Furthermore, the genetic variance that is maintained by mutation-selection balance is 2μ/S per locus, where μ is the mutation rate and S the strength of stabilizing selection. In reality, alleles vary in their effects, making the fitness landscape asymmetric and complicating analysis of the equilibria. We show that that the resulting genetic variance depends on the fraction of alleles near fixation, which contribute by 2μ/S, and on the total mutational effects of alleles that are at intermediate frequency. The inpplayfi between stabilizing selection and mutation leads to a sharp transition: alleles with effects smaller than a threshold value of 2 remain polymorphic, whereas those with larger effects are fixed. The genetic load in equilibrium is less than for traits of equal effects, and the fitness equilibria are more similar. We find p the optimum is displaced, alleles with effects close to the threshold value sweep first, and their rate of increase is bounded by Long-term response leads in general to well-adapted traits, unlike the case of equal effects that often end up at a suboptimal fitness peak. However, the particular peaks to which the populations converge are extremely sensitive to the initial states and to the speed of the shift of the optimum trait value.},
  author       = {De Vladar, Harold and Barton, Nicholas H},
  journal      = {Genetics},
  number       = {2},
  pages        = {749 -- 767},
  publisher    = {Genetics Society of America},
  title        = {{Stability and response of polygenic traits to stabilizing selection and mutation}},
  doi          = {10.1534/genetics.113.159111},
  volume       = {197},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1896,
  abstract     = {Biopolymer length regulation is a complex process that involves a large number of biological, chemical, and physical subprocesses acting simultaneously across multiple spatial and temporal scales. An illustrative example important for genomic stability is the length regulation of telomeres - nucleoprotein structures at the ends of linear chromosomes consisting of tandemly repeated DNA sequences and a specialized set of proteins. Maintenance of telomeres is often facilitated by the enzyme telomerase but, particularly in telomerase-free systems, the maintenance of chromosomal termini depends on alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) mechanisms mediated by recombination. Various linear and circular DNA structures were identified to participate in ALT, however, dynamics of the whole process is still poorly understood. We propose a chemical kinetics model of ALT with kinetic rates systematically derived from the biophysics of DNA diffusion and looping. The reaction system is reduced to a coagulation-fragmentation system by quasi-steady-state approximation. The detailed treatment of kinetic rates yields explicit formulas for expected size distributions of telomeres that demonstrate the key role played by the J factor, a quantitative measure of bending of polymers. The results are in agreement with experimental data and point out interesting phenomena: an appearance of very long telomeric circles if the total telomere density exceeds a critical value (excess mass) and a nonlinear response of the telomere size distributions to the amount of telomeric DNA in the system. The results can be of general importance for understanding dynamics of telomeres in telomerase-independent systems as this mode of telomere maintenance is similar to the situation in tumor cells lacking telomerase activity. Furthermore, due to its universality, the model may also serve as a prototype of an interaction between linear and circular DNA structures in various settings.},
  author       = {Kollár, Richard and Bod'ová, Katarína and Nosek, Jozef and Tomáška, Ľubomír},
  journal      = {Physical Review E Statistical Nonlinear and Soft Matter Physics},
  number       = {3},
  publisher    = {American Institute of Physics},
  title        = {{Mathematical model of alternative mechanism of telomere length maintenance}},
  doi          = {10.1103/PhysRevE.89.032701},
  volume       = {89},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1908,
  abstract     = {In large populations, multiple beneficial mutations may be simultaneously spreading. In asexual populations, these mutations must either arise on the same background or compete against each other. In sexual populations, recombination can bring together beneficial alleles from different backgrounds, but tightly linked alleles may still greatly interfere with each other. We show for well-mixed populations that when this interference is strong, the genome can be seen as consisting of many effectively asexual stretches linked together. The rate at which beneficial alleles fix is thus roughly proportional to the rate of recombination and depends only logarithmically on the mutation supply and the strength of selection. Our scaling arguments also allow us to predict, with reasonable accuracy, the fitness distribution of fixed mutations when the mutational effect sizes are broad. We focus on the regime in which crossovers occur more frequently than beneficial mutations, as is likely to be the case for many natural populations.},
  author       = {Weissman, Daniel and Hallatschek, Oskar},
  journal      = {Genetics},
  number       = {4},
  pages        = {1167 -- 1183},
  publisher    = {Genetics Society of America},
  title        = {{The rate of adaptation in large sexual populations with linear chromosomes}},
  doi          = {10.1534/genetics.113.160705},
  volume       = {196},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1909,
  abstract     = {Summary: Phenotypes are often environmentally dependent, which requires organisms to track environmental change. The challenge for organisms is to construct phenotypes using the most accurate environmental cue. Here, we use a quantitative genetic model of adaptation by additive genetic variance, within- and transgenerational plasticity via linear reaction norms and indirect genetic effects respectively. We show how the relative influence on the eventual phenotype of these components depends on the predictability of environmental change (fast or slow, sinusoidal or stochastic) and the developmental lag τ between when the environment is perceived and when selection acts. We then decompose expected mean fitness into three components (variance load, adaptation and fluctuation load) to study the fitness costs of within- and transgenerational plasticity. A strongly negative maternal effect coefficient m minimizes the variance load, but a strongly positive m minimises the fluctuation load. The adaptation term is maximized closer to zero, with positive or negative m preferred under different environmental scenarios. Phenotypic plasticity is higher when τ is shorter and when the environment changes frequently between seasonal extremes. Expected mean population fitness is highest away from highest observed levels of phenotypic plasticity. Within- and transgenerational plasticity act in concert to deliver well-adapted phenotypes, which emphasizes the need to study both simultaneously when investigating phenotypic evolution.},
  author       = {Ezard, Thomas and Prizak, Roshan and Hoyle, Rebecca},
  journal      = {Functional Ecology},
  number       = {3},
  pages        = {693 -- 701},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{The fitness costs of adaptation via phenotypic plasticity and maternal effects}},
  doi          = {10.1111/1365-2435.12207},
  volume       = {28},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1932,
  abstract     = {The existence of complex (multiple-step) genetic adaptations that are &quot;irreducible&quot; (i.e., all partial combinations are less fit than the original genotype) is one of the longest standing problems in evolutionary biology. In standard genetics parlance, these adaptations require the crossing of a wide adaptive valley of deleterious intermediate stages. Here, we demonstrate, using a simple model, that evolution can cross wide valleys to produce &quot;irreducibly complex&quot; adaptations by making use of previously cryptic mutations. When revealed by an evolutionary capacitor, previously cryptic mutants have higher initial frequencies than do new mutations, bringing them closer to a valley-crossing saddle in allele frequency space. Moreover, simple combinatorics implies an enormous number of candidate combinations exist within available cryptic genetic variation. We model the dynamics of crossing of a wide adaptive valley after a capacitance event using both numerical simulations and analytical approximations. Although individual valley crossing events become less likely as valleys widen, by taking the combinatorics of genotype space into account, we see that revealing cryptic variation can cause the frequent evolution of complex adaptations.},
  author       = {Trotter, Meredith and Weissman, Daniel and Peterson, Grant and Peck, Kayla and Masel, Joanna},
  journal      = {Evolution},
  number       = {12},
  pages        = {3357 -- 3367},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{Cryptic genetic variation can make &quot;irreducible complexity&quot; a common mode of adaptation in sexual populations}},
  doi          = {10.1111/evo.12517},
  volume       = {68},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1936,
  abstract     = {The social intelligence hypothesis states that the need to cope with complexities of social life has driven the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities. It is usually invoked in the context of challenges arising from complex intragroup structures, hierarchies, and alliances. However, a fundamental aspect of group living remains largely unexplored as a driving force in cognitive evolution: the competition between individuals searching for resources (producers) and conspecifics that parasitize their findings (scroungers). In populations of social foragers, abilities that enable scroungers to steal by outsmarting producers, and those allowing producers to prevent theft by outsmarting scroungers, are likely to be beneficial and may fuel a cognitive arms race. Using analytical theory and agent-based simulations, we present a general model for such a race that is driven by the producer-scrounger game and show that the race's plausibility is dramatically affected by the nature of the evolving abilities. If scrounging and scrounging avoidance rely on separate, strategy-specific cognitive abilities, arms races are short-lived and have a limited effect on cognition. However, general cognitive abilities that facilitate both scrounging and scrounging avoidance undergo stable, long-lasting arms races. Thus, ubiquitous foraging interactions may lead to the evolution of general cognitive abilities in social animals, without the requirement of complex intragroup structures.},
  author       = {Arbilly, Michal and Weissman, Daniel and Feldman, Marcus and Grodzinski, Uri},
  journal      = {Behavioral Ecology},
  number       = {3},
  pages        = {487 -- 495},
  publisher    = {Oxford University Press},
  title        = {{An arms race between producers and scroungers can drive the evolution of social cognition}},
  doi          = {10.1093/beheco/aru002},
  volume       = {25},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{537,
  abstract     = {Transgenerational effects are broader than only parental relationships. Despite mounting evidence that multigenerational effects alter phenotypic and life-history traits, our understanding of how they combine to determine fitness is not well developed because of the added complexity necessary to study them. Here, we derive a quantitative genetic model of adaptation to an extraordinary new environment by an additive genetic component, phenotypic plasticity, maternal and grandmaternal effects. We show how, at equilibrium, negative maternal and negative grandmaternal effects maximize expected population mean fitness. We define negative transgenerational effects as those that have a negative effect on trait expression in the subsequent generation, that is, they slow, or potentially reverse, the expected evolutionary dynamic. When maternal effects are positive, negative grandmaternal effects are preferred. As expected under Mendelian inheritance, the grandmaternal effects have a lower impact on fitness than the maternal effects, but this dual inheritance model predicts a more complex relationship between maternal and grandmaternal effects to constrain phenotypic variance and so maximize expected population mean fitness in the offspring.},
  author       = {Prizak, Roshan and Ezard, Thomas and Hoyle, Rebecca},
  journal      = {Ecology and Evolution},
  number       = {15},
  pages        = {3139 -- 3145},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{Fitness consequences of maternal and grandmaternal effects}},
  doi          = {10.1002/ece3.1150},
  volume       = {4},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{2023,
  abstract     = {Understanding the evolution of dispersal is essential for understanding and predicting the dynamics of natural populations. Two main factors are known to influence dispersal evolution: spatio-temporal variation in the environment and relatedness between individuals. However, the relation between these factors is still poorly understood, and they are usually treated separately. In this article, I present a theoretical framework that contains and connects effects of both environmental variation and relatedness, and reproduces and extends their known features. Spatial habitat variation selects for balanced dispersal strategies, whereby the population is kept at an ideal free distribution. Within this class of dispersal strategies, I explain how increased dispersal is promoted by perturbations to the dispersal type frequencies. An explicit formula shows the magnitude of the selective advantage of increased dispersal in terms of the spatial variability in the frequencies of the different dispersal strategies present. These variances are capable of capturing various sources of stochasticity and hence establish a common scale for their effects on the evolution of dispersal. The results furthermore indicate an alternative approach to identifying effects of relatedness on dispersal evolution.},
  author       = {Novak, Sebastian},
  journal      = {Ecology and Evolution},
  number       = {24},
  pages        = {4589 -- 4597},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{Habitat heterogeneities versus spatial type frequency variances as driving forces of dispersal evolution}},
  doi          = {10.1002/ece3.1289},
  volume       = {4},
  year         = {2014},
}

@inbook{10899,
  author       = {Barton, Nicholas H},
  booktitle    = {Encyclopedia of Biodiversity},
  isbn         = {978-0-12-384720-1},
  keywords     = {Adaptive landscape, Cline, Coalescent process, Gene flow, Hybrid zone, Local adaptation, Natural selection, Neutral theory, Population structure, Speciation},
  pages        = {508--515},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  title        = {{Differentiation}},
  doi          = {10.1016/b978-0-12-384719-5.00031-9},
  year         = {2013},
}

@article{2287,
  abstract     = {Negative frequency-dependent selection should result in equal sex ratios in large populations of dioecious flowering plants, but deviations from equality are commonly reported. A variety of ecological and genetic factors can explain biased sex ratios, although the mechanisms involved are not well understood. Most dioecious species are long-lived and/or clonal complicating efforts to identify stages during the life cycle when biases develop. We investigated the demographic correlates of sex-ratio variation in two chromosome races of Rumex hastatulus, an annual, wind-pollinated colonizer of open habitats from the southern USA. We examined sex ratios in 46 populations and evaluated the hypothesis that the proximity of males in the local mating environment, through its influence on gametophytic selection, is the primary cause of female-biased sex ratios. Female-biased sex ratios characterized most populations of R.  hastatulus (mean sex ratio = 0.62), with significant female bias in 89% of populations. Large, high-density populations had the highest proportion of females, whereas smaller, low-density populations had sex ratios closer to equality. Progeny sex ratios were more female biased when males were in closer proximity to females, a result consistent with the gametophytic selection hypothesis. Our results suggest that interactions between demographic and genetic factors are probably the main cause of female-biased sex ratios in R. hastatulus. The annual life cycle of this species may limit the scope for selection against males and may account for the weaker degree of bias in comparison with perennial Rumex species.},
  author       = {Pickup, Melinda and Barrett, Spencer},
  journal      = {Ecology and Evolution},
  number       = {3},
  pages        = {629 -- 639},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{The influence of demography and local mating environment on sex ratios in a wind-pollinated dioecious plant}},
  doi          = {10.1002/ece3.465},
  volume       = {3},
  year         = {2013},
}

@article{2473,
  abstract     = {When a mutation with selective advantage s spreads through a panmictic population, it may cause two lineages at a linked locus to coalesce; the probability of coalescence is exp(−2rT), where T∼log(2Ns)/s is the time to fixation, N is the number of haploid individuals, and r is the recombination rate. Population structure delays fixation, and so weakens the effect of a selective sweep. However, favourable alleles spread through a spatially continuous population behind a narrow wavefront; ancestral lineages are confined at the tip of this front, and so coalesce rapidly. In extremely dense populations, coalescence is dominated by rare fluctuations ahead of the front. However, we show that for moderate densities, a simple quasi-deterministic approximation applies: the rate of coalescence within the front is λ∼2g(η)/(ρℓ), where ρ is the population density and  is the characteristic scale of the wavefront; g(η) depends only on the strength of random drift,  . The net effect of a sweep on coalescence also depends crucially on whether two lineages are ever both within the wavefront at the same time: even in the extreme case when coalescence within the front is instantaneous, the net rate of coalescence may be lower than in a single panmictic population. Sweeps can also have a substantial impact on the rate of gene flow. A single lineage will jump to a new location when it is hit by a sweep, with mean square displacement  ; this can be substantial if the species’ range, L, is large, even if the species-wide rate of sweeps per map length, Λ/R, is small. This effect is half as strong in two dimensions. In contrast, the rate of coalescence between lineages, at random locations in space and on the genetic map, is proportional to (c/L)(Λ/R), where c is the wavespeed: thus, on average, one-dimensional structure is likely to reduce coalescence due to sweeps, relative to panmixis. In two dimensions, genes must move along the front before they can coalesce; this process is rapid, being dominated by rare fluctuations. This leads to a dramatically higher rate of coalescence within the wavefront than if lineages simply diffused along the front. Nevertheless, the net rate of coalescence due to a sweep through a two-dimensional population is likely to be lower than it would be with panmixis.},
  author       = {Barton, Nicholas H and Etheridge, Alison and Kelleher, Jerome and Véber, Amandine},
  journal      = {Theoretical Population Biology},
  number       = {8},
  pages        = {75 -- 89},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  title        = {{Genetic hitch-hiking in spatially extended populations}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.tpb.2012.12.001},
  volume       = {87},
  year         = {2013},
}

@inproceedings{2718,
  abstract     = {Even though both population and quantitative genetics, and evolutionary computation, deal with the same questions, they have developed largely independently of each other. I review key results from each field, emphasising those that apply independently of the (usually unknown) relation between genotype and phenotype. The infinitesimal model provides a simple framework for predicting the response of complex traits to selection, which in biology has proved remarkably successful. This allows one to choose the schedule of population sizes and selection intensities that will maximise the response to selection, given that the total number of individuals realised, C = ∑t Nt, is constrained. This argument shows that for an additive trait (i.e., determined by the sum of effects of the genes), the optimum population size and the maximum possible response (i.e., the total change in trait mean) are both proportional to √C.},
  author       = {Barton, Nicholas H and Paixao, Tiago},
  booktitle    = {Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation},
  location     = {Amsterdam, Netherlands},
  pages        = {1573 -- 1580},
  publisher    = {ACM},
  title        = {{Can quantitative and population genetics help us understand evolutionary computation?}},
  doi          = {10.1145/2463372.2463568},
  year         = {2013},
}

@inproceedings{2719,
  abstract     = {Prediction of the evolutionary process is a long standing problem both in the theory of evolutionary biology and evolutionary computation (EC). It has long been realized that heritable variation is crucial to both the response to selection and the success of genetic algorithms. However, not all variation contributes in the same way to the response. Quantitative genetics has developed a large body of work trying to estimate and understand how different components of the variance in fitness in the population contribute to the response to selection. We illustrate how to apply some concepts of quantitative genetics to the analysis of genetic algorithms. In particular, we derive estimates for the short term prediction of the response to selection and we use variance decomposition to gain insight on local aspects of the landscape. Finally, we propose a new population based genetic algorithm that uses these methods to improve its operation.},
  author       = {Paixao, Tiago and Barton, Nicholas H},
  booktitle    = {Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation},
  location     = {Amsterdam, Netherlands},
  pages        = {845 -- 852},
  publisher    = {ACM},
  title        = {{A variance decomposition approach to the analysis of genetic algorithms}},
  doi          = {10.1145/2463372.2463470},
  year         = {2013},
}

@article{2720,
  abstract     = {Knowledge of the rate and fitness effects of mutations is essential for understanding the process of evolution. Mutations are inherently difficult to study because they are rare and are frequently eliminated by natural selection. In the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, mutations can accumulate in the germline genome without being exposed to selection. We have conducted a mutation accumulation (MA) experiment in this species. Assuming that all mutations are deleterious and have the same effect, we estimate that the deleterious mutation rate per haploid germline genome per generation is U = 0.0047 (95% credible interval: 0.0015, 0.0125), and that germline mutations decrease fitness by s = 11% when expressed in a homozygous state (95% CI: 4.4%, 27%). We also estimate that deleterious mutations are partially recessive on average (h = 0.26; 95% CI: –0.022, 0.62) and that the rate of lethal mutations is &lt;10% of the deleterious mutation rate. Comparisons between the observed evolutionary responses in the germline and somatic genomes and the results from individual-based simulations of MA suggest that the two genomes have similar mutational parameters. These are the first estimates of the deleterious mutation rate and fitness effects from the eukaryotic supergroup Chromalveolata and are within the range of those of other eukaryotes.},
  author       = {Long, Hongan and Paixao, Tiago and Azevedo, Ricardo and Zufall, Rebecca},
  journal      = {Genetics},
  number       = {2},
  pages        = {527--540},
  publisher    = {Genetics Society of America},
  title        = {{Accumulation of spontaneous mutations in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila}},
  doi          = {10.1534/genetics.113.153536},
  volume       = {195},
  year         = {2013},
}

