Effects of demographic stochasticity and life-history strategies on times and probabilities to fixation.

Abstract

How life-history strategies influence the evolution of populations is not well understood. Most existing models stem from the Wright-Fisher model which considers discrete generations and a fixed population size, thus not taking into account any potential consequences of overlapping generations and demographic stochasticity on allelic frequencies. We introduce an individual-based model in which both population size and genotypic frequencies at a single bi-allelic locus are emergent properties of the model. Demographic parameters can be defined so as to represent a large range of r and K life-history strategies in a stable environment, and appropriate fixed effective population sizes are calculated so as to compare our model to the Wright-Fisher diffusion. Our results indicate that models with fixed population size that stem from the Wright-Fisher diffusion cannot fully capture the consequences of demographic stochasticity on allele fixation in long-lived species with low reproductive rates. This discrepancy is accentuated in the presence of demo-genetic feedback. Furthermore, we predict that populations with K life-histories should maintain lower genetic diversity than those with r life-histories.