Slow-fast stochastic diffusion dynamics and quasi-stationary distributions for diploid populations

Abstract: We are interested in the long-time behavior of a diploid population with sexual reproduction, characterized by its genotype composition at one bi-allelic locus. The population is modeled by a 3-dimensional birth-and-death process with competition, cooperation and Mendelian reproduction. This stochastic process is indexed by a scaling parameter $K$ that goes to infinity, following a large population assumption. When the birth and natural death parameters are of order $K$, the sequence of stochastic processes indexed by $K$ converges toward a slow-fast dynamics. We indeed prove the convergence toward 0 of a fast variable giving the deviation of the population from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, while the sequence of slow variables giving the respective numbers of occurrences of each allele converges toward a 2-dimensional diffusion process that reaches $(0,0)$ almost surely in finite time. We obtain that the population size and the proportion of a given allele converge toward a generalized Wright-Fisher diffusion with varying population size and diploid selection. Using a non trivial change of variables, we next study the absorption of this diffusion and its long time behavior conditioned on non-extinction. In particular we prove that this diffusion starting from any non-trivial state and conditioned on not hitting $(0,0)$ admits a unique quasi-stationary distribution. We finally give numerical approximations of this quasi-stationary behavior in three biologically relevant cases: neutrality, overdominance, and separate niches.