Error threshold in the evolution of diploid organisms

TL;DR

This paper investigates how error propagation affects diploid organisms' evolution, showing that dominance can prevent error catastrophe within a specific genetic landscape.

Contribution

It introduces a diploid quasispecies model analyzing error thresholds and the protective role of dominance against error catastrophe.

Findings

Dominance influences error threshold levels.

Dominance can prevent error catastrophe.

Analysis limited to single-peaked landscape.

Abstract

The effects of error propagation in the reproduction of diploid organisms are studied within the populational genetics framework of the quasispecies model. The dependence of the error threshold on the dominance parameter is fully investigated. In particular, it is shown that dominance can protect the wild-type alleles from the error catastrophe. The analysis is restricted to a diploid analogue of the single-peaked landscape.