Exploring the Power of Experimental Evolution to Identify Dobzhansky-Muller Incompatibility Loci using Forward-time Simulations

Fitness reducing epistatic interactions referred to as Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities (DMIs) are responsible for the inviability and infertility prevalent in hybrid populations. As “evolutionary dead-ends,” these hybrid failures encourage reproductive isolation between two incipient species. Studies on hybrid genomes are therefore vital to understand the processes that underlie speciation events. My project aimed to determine the power of simulations to correctly identify genetic loci involved in reproductive isolation. Using SLiM, I created and evolved simulated hybrid populations with genomes containing user-defined DMIs. Biologically relevant parameters, such as recombination rates, selection coefficients, dominance effects, generation timepoints, and incompatibility types, differed among my simulations, allowing me to characterize the parameter spaces that resulted in high-powered estimates of DMI localization. My conclusions may act as a guide for evolve and re-sequence wet-lab experiments that aim to map real-world DMIs in Caenorhabditis hybrid populations.M.Sc