Perenniality induces high inbreeding depression in self-fertilising species

Abstract

When predicting the fate and consequences of recurring deleterious mutations in self-fertilising populations most models developed make the assumption that populations have discrete non-overlapping generations. This makes them biologically irrelevant when considering perennial species with overlapping generations and where mating occurs independently of the age group. The few models studying the effect of perennial life-histories on the genetic properties of populations in the presence of self-fertilisation have done so considering age-dependent selection. They find low levels of inbreeding depression in perennial populations that do not explain empirical observations. Here we propose a simple deterministic model in continuous time with selection at different fitness traits and feedback between population fitness and size. We find that a perennial life-history can result in high levels of inbreeding depression in spite of inbreeding, due to higher frequencies of heterozygous individuals at the adult stage. We also propose that there may be demographic advantages for self-fertilisation that are independent of reproductive success.