For many years now, I’ve been trying to get the final chapter of my dissertation published. Its gone to several journals, and at Molecular Ecology I finally got a really good editor, who is an expert in the topic. He provided great comments, which finally convinced me to bite the bullet and redo my simulations, updating my analysis.
I’ll post a pre-print when it comes available, but for now here is the abstract information.
Antagonism between Local Dispersal and Self-Incompatibility Systems in a Continuous Plant Population
Reed A. Cartwright
Abstract: Many self-incompatible plant species exist in continuous populations in which individuals disperse locally. Local dispersal of pollen and seeds facilitates inbreeding because pollen pools are likely to contain relatives. Self-incompatibility promotes outbreeding because relatives are likely to carry incompatible alleles. Therefore, populations can experience an antagonism between these forces. In this study, a novel computational model is used to explore the effects of this antagonism on gene flow, allelic diversity, neighborhood sizes, and identity-by-descent. I confirm that this antagonism is sensitive to dispersal levels and linkage. However, the results suggest that there is little to no difference between the effects of gametophytic and sporophytic SI on unlinked loci. More importantly both GSI and SSI affect unlinked loci in a manner similar to obligate outcrossing without mating types. This suggests that the primary evolutionary impact of self-incompatibility systems may be to prevent selfing, and prevention of biparental inbreeding might be a beneficial side effect.
Update