Eco-evolutionary Dynamics of Colonization: When Does Source Selection Matter?

Balancing selection in ancestral source populations increases colonization establishment rates in new habitats when founder populations are relatively small, outperforming source neutrality and directional selection.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear whether balanced polymorphism meaningfully improves colonization success, especially compared with effects of immigration history and admixture, and under what ecological and demographic conditions it matters.
• What they did: Using computer simulations, the authors modeled source populations under balancing selection, directional selection, and neutrality, then introduced founder groups of different sizes into novel stable or perturbed habitats under varying selection regimes.
• The result: Establishment is higher under ancestral balancing selection for small founders, and this pattern holds under stable or variable conditions and persists under harsher or more perturbed environments, while source selection has little effect for large colonizing populations.

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