Effect of Population Size and Mutation Rate on the Evolution of RNA Sequences on an Adaptive Landscape Determined by RNA Folding

International Journal of Biological Sciences
Ali R VahdatiAndreas Wagner

Abstract

The dynamics of populations evolving on an adaptive landscape depends on multiple factors, including the structure of the landscape, the rate of mutations, and effective population size. Existing theoretical work often makes ad hoc and simplifying assumptions about landscape structure, whereas experimental work can vary important parameters only to a limited extent. We here overcome some of these limitations by simulating the adaptive evolution of RNA molecules, whose fitness is determined by the thermodynamics of RNA secondary structure folding. We study the influence of mutation rates and population sizes on final mean population fitness, on the substitution rates of mutations, and on population diversity. We show that evolutionary dynamics cannot be understood as a function of mutation rate µ, population size N, or population mutation rate Nµ alone. For example, at a given mutation rate, clonal interference prevents the fixation of beneficial mutations as population size increases, but larger populations still arrive at a higher mean fitness. In addition, at the highest population mutation rates we study, mean final fitness increases with population size, because small populations are driven to low fitness by the relatively ...Continue Reading

Citations

Sep 5, 2020·ELife·Hye Jin ParkArne Traulsen
Jul 3, 2021·International Journal of Molecular Sciences·María Arribas, Ester Lázaro

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Genonets
iGraph
ViennaRNA package
ViennaRNA

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