Suppressors of selection

Abstract

Inspired by recent works on evolutionary graph theory, an area of growing interest in mathematical and computational biology, we present examples of undirected structures acting as suppressors of selection for any fitness value r > 1. This means that the average fixation probability of an advantageous mutant or invader individual placed at some node is strictly less than that of this individual placed in a well-mixed population. This leads the way to study more robust structures less prone to invasion, contrary to what happens with the amplifiers of selection where the fixation probability is increased on average for advantageous invader individuals. A few families of amplifiers are known, although some effort was required to prove it. Here, we use computer aided techniques to find an exact analytical expression of the fixation probability for some graphs of small order (equal to 6, 8 and 10) proving that selection is effectively reduced for r > 1. Some numerical experiments using Monte Carlo methods are also performed for larger graphs and some variants.