The effect of mating complexity on gene drive dynamics

Abstract

Gene drive technology promises to deliver on some of the global challenges humanity faces to-day in healthcare, agriculture and conservation. However, there is a limited understanding of the consequences of releasing self-perpetuating transgenic organisms into the wild populations under complex ecological conditions. In this study, we analyze the impact of three such complexities, mate-choice, mating systems and spatial mating network, on the population dynamics for two distinct classes of modification gene drive systems. All three factors had a high impact on the modelling outcome. First, we demonstrate that distortion based gene drives appear to be more robust against the mate-choice than viability-based gene drives. Second, we find that gene drive spread is much faster for higher degrees of polygamy. Including a fitness cost, the drive is fastest for intermediate levels of polygamy. Finally, the spread of gene drive is faster and more effective when the individuals have fewer connections in a spatial mating network. Our results highlight the need to include mating complexities while modelling the properties of gene drives such as release thresholds, timescales and population-level consequences. This inclusion will enable a more confident prediction of the dynamics of engineered gene drives and possibly even inform on the origin and evolution of natural gene drives.