Addressing Darwin's dilemma: Can pseudo-overdominance explain persistent inbreeding depression and load?

Darwin spent years investigating the effects of self-fertilization, concluding that nature abhors perpetual self-fertilization. Given that selection purges inbred populations of strongly deleterious mutations and drift fixes mild mutations, why does inbreeding depression (ID) persist in highly inbred taxa and why do no purely selfing taxa exist? Background selection, associations and interference among loci, and drift within small inbred populations all limit selection while often increasing fixation. These mechanisms help to explain why more inbred populations in most species consistently show more fixed load. This drift load is manifest in the considerable heterosis regularly observed in between-population crosses. Such heterosis results in subsequent high ID, suggesting a mechanism by which small populations could retain variation and inbreeding load. Multiple deleterious recessive mutations linked in repulsion generate pseudo-overdominance. Many tightly linked load loci could generate a balanced segregating load high enough to sustain ID over many generations. Such pseudo-overdominance blocks (or PODs) are more likely to occur in regions of low recombination. They should also result in clear genetic signatures including genomic hotspots of heterozygosity; distinct haplotypes supporting alleles at intermediate frequency; and high linkage disequilibrium in and around POD regions. Simulation and empirical studies tend to support these predictions. Additional simulations and comparative genomic analyses should explore POD dynamics in greater detail to resolve whether PODs exist in sufficient strength and number to account for why ID and load persist within inbred lineages.

Automated summary

Despite the purging effect of selection and fixation due to drift, inbreeding depression (ID) persists in highly inbred taxa. Various mechanisms, including pseudo-overdominance from multiple deleterious recessive mutations, contribute to the retention of ID and load within inbred lineages. High heterosis observed in inter-population crosses suggests a mechanism by which small populations could maintain variation and inbreeding load.