Severe inbreeding depression is predicted by the “rare allele load” in Mimulus guttatus

Most flowering plants are hermaphroditic and experience strong pressures to evolve self‐pollination (automatic selection, reproductive assurance). Inbreeding depression (ID) can oppose selection for selfing, but it remains unclear if ID is typically strong enough to maintain outcrossing. To measure the full cost of sustained inbreeding on fitness, and its genomic basis, we planted highly homozygous, fully genome‐sequenced inbred lines of yellow monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus) in the field next to outbred plants from crosses between the same lines. The cost of full homozygosity is severe: 65% for survival, 86% for lifetime seed production. Accounting for the unmeasured effect of lethal and sterile mutations, we estimate that the average fitness of fully inbred genotypes is only 3–4% that of outbred competitors. The genome sequence data provides no indication of simple overdominance, but the number of rare alleles carried by a line, especially within rare allele clusters nonrandomly distr...