Kr/Kc but not dN/dS correlates positively with body mass in birds, raising implications for inferring lineage-specific selection.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The ratio of the rates of non-synonymous and synonymous substitution (dN/dS) is commonly used to estimate selection in coding sequences. It is often suggested that, all else being equal, dN/dS should be lower in populations with large effective size (Ne) due to increased efficacy of purifying selection. As Ne is difficult to measure directly, life history traits such as body mass, which is typically negatively associated with population size, have commonly been used as proxies in empirical tests of this hypothesis. However, evidence of whether the expected positive correlation between body mass and dN/dS is consistently observed is conflicting.

Results

Employing whole genome sequence data from 48 avian species, we assess the relationship between rates of molecular

SUBMITTER: Weber CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4264323 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature