Variation in inbreeding depression within and among Caenorhabditis species.

Authors

Matthew V Rockman, Max R Bernstein, Derin Çağlar, M Victoria Cattani, Audrey S Chang, Taniya Kaur, Luke M Noble, Annalise B Paaby

Published in

G3 (Bethesda, Md.). Aug 29, 2025. Epub Aug 29, 2025.

Abstract

Outbreeding populations harbor large numbers of recessive deleterious alleles that reduce the fitness of inbred individuals, and this inbreeding depression potentially shapes the evolution of mating systems, acting as a counterweight to the inherent selective advantage of self-fertilization. The population biological factors that influence inbreeding depression are numerous and often difficult to disentangle. We investigated the utility of obligately-outcrossing Caenorhabditis nematodes as models for inbreeding depression. By systematically inbreeding lines from ten populations and tracking line extinction, we found that inbreeding depression is universal but highly variable among species and populations. Inbreeding depression was detected across the life cycle, from mating to embryo production to embryonic viability and larval growth, and reciprocal crosses implicated female-biased effects. In most cases, the surviving inbred lines have dramatically reduced fitness, but the variance among inbred lines is substantial and compatible with the idea that inbreeding depression need not be an obstacle to the evolution of selfing in these worms. Populations of some species, including Caenorhabditis becei, exhibited modest inbreeding depression and could be tractable laboratory models for obligately outcrossing Caenorhabditis.

PMID:
40880067
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 29 Aug 2025.

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