EMPIRICAL VALIDATION OF THE NEARLY NEUTRAL THEORY AT DIVERGENCE AND POPULATION GENOMIC SCALE USING 144 PLACENTAL MAMMALS GENOMES.

ABSTRACT: By limiting the efficacy of selection, random drift is expected to play a major role in genome evolution. Formalizing this idea, the nearly-neutral theory predicts that the ratio of non-synonymous over synonymous polymorphism πN/πS within populations, and divergence dN/dS between species, should both correlate negatively with Ne . This has previously been tested in mammals and other groups. However, most studies have focused on either dN/dS or on πN/πS , thus not addressing the problem across evolutionary scales. In addition, many studies at the macro scale have used life-history traits (LHT) as a proxy of Ne , assuming that large-bodied organisms have lower Ne than small-bodied species. However, this assumption itself has rarely been validated against more objective measures of Ne , such

SUBMITTER: Bastian M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12724173 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature