Balancing selection maintains hyper-divergent haplotypes in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: Across diverse taxa, selfing species have evolved independently from outcrossing species thousands of times. The transition from outcrossing to selfing decreases the effective population size, effective recombination rate and heterozygosity within a species. These changes lead to a reduction in genetic diversity, and therefore adaptive potential, by intensifying the effects of random genetic drift and linked selection. Within the nematode genus Caenorhabditis, selfing has evolved at least three times, and all three species, including the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, show substantially reduced genetic diversity relative to outcrossing species. Selfing and outcrossing Caenorhabditis species are often found in the same niches, but we still do not know how selfing species with limite

SUBMITTER: Lee D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8202730 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature