UVictoria Maud Menten Institute /Mathematical and Statistical Biology Seminar: Sally Otto

Selection acts upon genes tied together on chromosomes. This physical association reduces the efficiency of evolution because, in the absence of sex, alleles must rise and fall together in frequency with the genome in which they are found. In this talk, I introduce the concept of selective interference, describe the role that sex and recombination play in reducing this interference, and provide evidence from both theoretical and empirical studies that sex and recombination may have evolved and be maintained to reduce this interference, thereby increasing the efficiency of evolution.