Determinants of the Efficacy of Natural Selection on Coding and Noncoding Variability in Two Passerine Species.

ABSTRACT: Population genetic theory predicts that selection should be more effective when the effective population size (Ne) is larger, and that the efficacy of selection should correlate positively with recombination rate. Here, we analyzed the genomes of ten great tits and ten zebra finches. Nucleotide diversity at 4-fold degenerate sites indicates that zebra finches have a 2.83-fold larger Ne. We obtained clear evidence that purifying selection is more effective in zebra finches. The proportion of substitutions at 0-fold degenerate sites fixed by positive selection (α) is high in both species (great tit 48%; zebra finch 64%) and is significantly higher in zebra finches. When α was estimated on GC-conservative changes (i.e., between A and T and between G and C), the estimates reduced in both speci

SUBMITTER: Corcoran P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5714183 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature