Mutation load under additive fitness effects

Under the traditional mutation load model based on multiplicative fitness effects, the load in a population is 1−e(−U), where U is the genomic deleterious mutation rate. Because this load becomes high under large U, synergistic epistasis has been proposed as one possible means of reducing the load. However, experiments on model organisms attempting to detect synergistic epistasis have often focused on a quadratic fitness model, with the resulting general conclusion being that epistasis is neither common nor strong. Here, I present a model of additive fitness effects and show that, unlike multiplicative effects, the equilibrium frequency of an allele under additivity is dependent on the average absolute fitness of the population. The additive model then results in a load of U/(U +1), which is much lower than 1−e(−U) for large U. Numerical iterations demonstrate that this analytic derivation holds as a good approximation under biologically relevant values of selection coefficients and U. Additionally, regressions onto Drosophila mutation accumulation data suggest that the common method of inferring epistasis by detecting large quadratic terms from regressions is not always necessary, as the additive model fits the data well and results in synergistic epistasis. Furthermore, the additive model gives a much larger reduction in load than the quadratic model when predicted from the same data, indicating that it is important to consider this additive model in addition to the quadratic model when inferring epistasis from mutation accumulation data.