Fixation probability of a beneficial mutation conferring decreased generation time in changing environments

BACKGROUND: One central building block of population genetics is the fixation probability. It is a probabilistic understanding of the eventual fate of new mutations. Moreover, the fixation probability of new beneficial mutations plays an important effect on the adaptation of populations to environmental challenges. Great progress has been made in the study of the beneficial mutations that increases offspring number. However, the fixation probability of beneficial mutations with a shorter generation time under various genetic and ecological conditions has not been explored. RESULTS: Here we extend the classical result of the fixation probability of beneficial mutations obtained by Haldane, and estimate the fixation probability of a beneficial mutation with a reduced generation time in a changing environment. Assuming that the selective advantage is very small, we concentrate all the changing factors of environment on a single quantity: effective selective advantage. Using a time-dependent branching process, we get the analytic approximation for the fixation probability of beneficial mutations that decrease the generation time. Then, we apply this approximation to four interesting biological cases. CONCLUSIONS: In these instances, we show the comparison of the approximation with the accurate values. We find that they are consistent, demonstrating the effectiveness of our result for the fixation probability of beneficial mutations conferring a reduced replication time.