The Evolutionary Feedback between Genetic Conflict and Genome Architecture

Abstract

The advent of separate sexes set the stage for dramatic evolutionary innovation across a wide range of taxa. Much of this innovation is attributable to divergent evolutionary interests between now distinct sub-populations of males and females. Trade-offs inherent to these divergent life histories, coupled with a common genome, conspire to limit natural selection's ability to simultaneously maximize the fitness of both sexes. Such conflict between the sexes has therefore largely shaped the history of the genomes of sexual taxa. However, various aspects of the genomic environment—including genes' spatial distributions, abilities to regulate their expression, and rates of recombination—also feed back to influence future sex-specific evolutionary trajectories. Using various genomic resources and transcriptome sequences for the lab mouse, I test several theoretical predictions regarding this feedback between genetic conflict and features of genomic organization.