Computer simulation of arising of diploid genomes

The haploid-diploid cycle where, under unfavorable conditions the population becomes diploid, is modeled by a Monte-Carlo method in the framework of the Jan-Stauffer-Moseley hypothesis. Diploidy and sex may have first arisen as a way to escape death, when a simple unicellular individual is threatened by too many deleterious mutations. Using a bit string model, we find that in a system where competition is present (through the Verhulst factor), diploids dominate. In this case the transition from haploid to essentially diploid population takes place in a short time interval reminiscent of phase transitions in physical systems. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.