Joint Effects of Genetic Hitchhiking and Background Selection on Neutral Variation

Due to relatively high rates of strongly selected deleterious mutations, directional selection on favorable alleles (causing hitchhiking effects on linked neutral polymorphisms) is expected to occur while a deleterious mutation-selection balance is present in a population. We analyze this interaction of directional selection and background selection and study their combined effects on neutral variation, using a three-locus model in which each locus is subjected to either deleterious, favorable, or neutral mutations. Average heterozygosity is measured by simulations (1) at the stationary state under the assumption of recurrent hitchhiking events and (2) as a transient level after a single hitchhiking event. The simulation results are compared to theoretical predictions. It is shown that known analytical solutions describing the hitchhiking effect without background selection can be modified such that they accurately predict the joint effects of hitchhiking and background on linked, neutral variation. Generalization of these results to a more appropriate multilocus model (such that background selection can occur at multiple sites) suggests that, in regions of very low recombination rates, stationary levels of nucleotide diversity are primarily determined by hitchhiking, whereas in regions of high recombination, background selection is the dominant force. The implications of these results on the identification and estimation of the relevant parameters of the model are discussed.