Conflicting effects of recombination on the evolvability and robustness in neutrally evolving populations

Understanding the benefits and costs of recombination under different scenarios of evolutionary adaptation remains an open problem for theoretical and experimental research. In this study, we focus on finite populations evolving on neutral networks comprising viable and unfit genotypes. We provide a comprehensive overview of the effects of recombination by jointly considering different measures of evolvability and mutational robustness over a broad parameter range, such that many evolutionary regimes are covered. We find that several of these measures vary non-monotonically with the rates of mutation and recombination. Moreover, the presence of unfit genotypes that introduce inhomogeneities in the network of viable states qualitatively alters the effects of recombination. We conclude that conflicting trends induced by recombination can be explained by an emerging trade-off between evolvability on the one hand, and mutational robustness on the other. Finally, we discuss how different implementations of the recombination scheme in theoretical models can affect the observed dependence on recombination rate through a coupling between recombination and genetic drift. Author summary Many genetic mechanisms have been invoked to explain the advantage of sex, but a coherent picture is still to emerge. Here we present a systematic theoretical and computational investigation of the effects of recombination in populations evolving on neutral fitness landscapes with unfit genotypes. We focus on populations that are large enough to be polymorphic, but nevertheless strongly affected by drift, which causes them to diffuse across the neutral network of viable genotypes. We identify a novel trade-off between evolvability, robustness and fitness that can lead to a dramatic reduction of the genetic diversity at large recombination rates. This disproves the common notion (often referred to as Weismann's hypothesis) that recombination generally increases diversity and evolvability, and instead highlights the interplay of recombination and mutational robustness.

Automated summary

Understanding the effects of recombination on populations evolving on neutral fitness landscapes with unfit genotypes is still an open problem. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the effects of recombination on evolvability and mutational robustness. The results show that some measures vary non-monotonically with the rates of mutation and recombination, and the presence of unfit genotypes alters the effects of recombination. A trade-off between evolvability and mutational robustness explains the conflicting trends induced by recombination.