One of the most widely cited hypotheses to explain the evolutionary maintenance of genetic recombination states that the reshuffling of genotypes at meiosis increases the efficiency of natural selection by reducing interference among selected loci. However, and despite several decades of theoretical work, a quantitative estimation of the possible selective advantage of a mutant allele increasing chromosomal map length (the average number of cross-overs at meiosis) remains difficult. This article derives a simple expression for the strength of selection acting on a modifier gene affecting the genetic map length of a whole chromosome or genome undergoing recurrent mutation. In particular, it shows that indirect selection for recombination caused by interference among mutations is proportional to NeU2/NeR3, where Ne is the effective population size, U is the deleterious mutation rate per chromosome, and R is the chromosome map length. Indirect selection is relatively insensitive to the fitness effects of deleterious alleles, epistasis, or the genetic architecture of recombination rate variation and may compensate for substantial costs associated with recombination when linkage is tight. However, its effect generally stays weak in large, highly recombining populations.

解释遗传重组进化维持的最广泛引用的假设之一指出，减数分裂时基因型的改组通过减少选定基因座之间的干扰来提高自然选择的效率。然而，尽管进行了几十年的理论工作，但对增加染色体图谱长度（减数分裂的平均交叉数）的突变等位基因可能的选择性优势进行定量估计仍然很困难。这篇文章推导出了一个简单的表达方式，即作用于修饰基因的选择强度，影响整个染色体或经历反复突变的基因组的遗传图谱长度。特别是，它表明突变间干扰引起的重组的间接选择与N电子你2/N电子电阻3， 在哪里 N电子是有效种群大小，U 是每条染色体的有害突变率，R 是染色体图谱长度。间接选择对有害等位基因、上位性或重组率变异的遗传结构的适应性影响相对不敏感，并且当连锁紧密时可以补偿与重组相关的大量成本。然而，它的影响通常在大的、高度重组的群体中保持微弱。