Fig. 1

Overview of our simulation approach for testing the trap model. A We simulated diploid organisms with 5 chromosomes and a uniform recombination rate of 4 cM/Mb. Equally sized transposon traps and reference regions were simulated on opposite ends of the chromosomes. In our model, we assumed that a TE insertion into a reference region (B) has no effect on TE activity while a single insertion into a transposon trap (C) silences the TE [37, 40]. The numbers 1 to 4 refer to successive time points during a TE invasion. Green circle: active TE insertion, red circle: inactive TE insertion