Characterizing the influence of effective population size on the rate of adaptation: Gillespie's Darwin domain.

ABSTRACT: Characterizing the role of effective population size in dictating the rate of adaptive evolution remains a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Depending on the underlying distribution of fitness effects of new mutations, populations of different sizes may differ vastly in their rate of adaptation. Here, we collect polymorphism data at over 100 loci for two closely related Drosophila species with different current effective population sizes (N(e)), Drosophila miranda and D. pseudoobscura, to evaluate the prevalence of adaptive evolution versus genetic drift in molecular evolution. Utilizing these large and consistently sampled data sets, we obtain greatly improved estimates of the demographic histories of both species. Specifically, although current N(e) differs between these species,

SUBMITTER: Jensen JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3157839 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature