Fig. 1

Theoretical impacts of mutation rate and sexual recombination on population structures. a Mutationally limited fitness landscape, where most mutations fix in a single sweep with very little inter-clonal competition. b Increased mutation rate over (a), more competition and faster evolution observed, but some mutations are lost due to inter-clonal competition. c Adding sexual recombination to (a), due to few available beneficial mutations, no strong influence on evolution is observed. d Both sexual recombination and increase in mutation rate from (a), more rapid evolution is observed and fewer beneficial mutations are lost due to clonal interference