Rapid evolutionary processes can produce drastically different outcomes when studied in panmictic population models vs. spatial models. One such process is gene drive, which describes the spread of “selfish” genetic elements through a population. Engineered gene drives are being considered for the suppression of disease vectors or invasive species. While laboratory experiments and modelling in panmictic populations have shown that such drives can rapidly eliminate a population, it remains unclear if these results translate to natural environments where individuals inhabit a continuous landscape. Using spatially explicit simulations, we show that the release of a suppression drive can result in what we term “chasing” dynamics, in which wild‐type individuals recolonize areas where the drive has locally eliminated the population. Despite the drive subsequently reconquering these areas, complete population suppression often fails to occur or is substantially delayed. This increases the likelihood that the drive is lost or that resistance evolves. We analyse how chasing dynamics are influenced by the type of drive, its efficiency, fitness costs, and ecological factors such as the maximal growth rate of the population and levels of dispersal and inbreeding. We find that chasing is more common for lower efficiency drives when dispersal is low and that some drive mechanisms are substantially more prone to chasing behaviour than others. Our results demonstrate that the population dynamics of suppression gene drives are determined by a complex interplay of genetic and ecological factors, highlighting the need for realistic spatial modelling to predict the outcome of drive releases in natural populations.

中文翻译：

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连续空间中的抑制基因驱动可导致驱动和野生型等位基因的不稳定持久性

在泛群体模型与空间模型中进行研究时，快速进化过程会产生截然不同的结果。一个这样的过程是基因驱动，它描述了“自私”遗传元素在人群中的传播。工程基因驱动正在考虑用于抑制疾病载体或入侵物种。虽然在泛泛人群中进行的实验室实验和建模表明，这种驱动可以迅速消除种群，但尚不清楚这些结果是否会转化为个体居住在连续景观中的自然环境。使用空间显式模拟，我们表明抑制驱动器的释放可以导致我们所说的“追逐”动态，其中野生型个体重新定居在驱动器已局部消除种群的区域。尽管随后的驱动重新征服了这些地区，但完全的人口抑制通常不会发生或被大大延迟。这增加了驱动器丢失或产生阻力的可能性。我们分析了追逐动态如何受到驱动类型、效率、适应性成本和生态因素的影响，例如种群的最大增长率以及分散和近亲繁殖的水平。我们发现，当分散率低时，追逐对于效率较低的驱动更为常见，并且某些驱动机制比其他驱动机制更容易出现追逐行为。我们的研究结果表明，抑制基因驱动的种群动态是由遗传和生态因素的复杂相互作用决定的，