English

The effective strength of selection in random environment

Probability 2025-02-10 v4

Abstract

We analyse a family of two-types Wright-Fisher models with selection in a random environment and skewed offspring distribution. We provide a calculable criterion to quantify the impact of different shapes of selection on the fate of the weakest allele, and thus compare them. The main mathematical tool is duality, which we prove to hold, also in presence of random environment (quenched and in some cases annealed), between the population's allele frequencies and genealogy, both in the case of finite population size and in the scaling limit for large size. Duality also yields new insight on properties of branching-coalescing processes in random environment, such as their long term behaviour.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1903.12121,
  title  = {The effective strength of selection in random environment},
  author = {Adrián González Casanova and Dario Spanò and Maite Wilke-Berenguer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.12121},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

49 pages; v2 corrected an error in the proof of Thm 3.2;

R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:22:25.058Z