Maintenance of high disequilibrium in the presence of partial selfing

Abstract

The minimum strength of selection necessary to maintain high linkage disequilibrium in two-locus, two-allele, deterministic discrete time genetic models with high rates of partial selfing is determined. The relationship between linkage and partial selfing is shown to be complex. The major effect of high selfing rates is to decrease the strength of selection necessary to maintain disequilibrium, but only for large recombination rates. With partial selfing, stable equilibria of these models require strong selection to maintain high values of disequilibrium.