How Much Does N_e Vary Among Species?

ABSTRACT: Genetic drift is an important evolutionary force of strength inversely proportional to N_e , the effective population size. The impact of drift on genome diversity and evolution is known to vary among species, but quantifying this effect is a difficult task. Here we assess the magnitude of variation in drift power among species of animals via its effect on the mutation load - which implies also inferring the distribution of fitness effects of deleterious mutations. To this aim, we analyze the nonsynonymous (amino-acid changing) and synonymous (amino-acid conservative) allele frequency spectra in a large sample of metazoan species, with a focus on the primates vs. fruit flies contrast. We show that a Gamma model of the distribution of fitness effects is not suitable

SUBMITTER: Galtier N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7536855 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature