A method for identifying local adaptation in structured populations.

ABSTRACT: Species occupy diverse, heterogeneous environments, which expose populations to spatially varied selective pressures. Populations in different environments can diverge due to local adaptation. However, neutral evolution can also drive population divergence. Thus, testing for local adaptation requires a neutral baseline for population differentiation. The classical QST-FST comparison was developed for this purpose. Yet, QST-FST frequently fails to account for the complexities of population structure because the theory underlying this comparison assumes that all subpopulations are equally related, resulting in inflated false positive rates in metapopulations that deviate from the island model. To address this limitation we use estimates of between- and within-population relatedness to model

SUBMITTER: do O I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12479014 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature