Blackmon, H. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2020

The Probability of Fusions Joining Sex Chromosomes and Autosomes

Chromosome fusion and fission are primary mechanisms of karyotype evolution. In particular, the fusion of a sex chromosome and an autosome has been proposed as a mechanism to resolve intralocus sexual antagonism. If sexual antagonism is common throughout the genome, we should expect to see an excess of fusions that join sex chromosomes and autosomes. Here, we present a null model that provides the probability of a sex chromosome autosome fusion, assuming all chromosomes have an equal probability of being involved in a fusion. This closed-form expression is applicable to both male and female heterogametic sex chromosome systems and can accommodate unequal proportions of fusions originating in males and females.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Ghosts of a structured past: Impacts of ancestral isolation by distance on divergence time estimation

Isolation by distance is a widespread pattern in nature that describes the reduction of genetic correlation between subpopulations with increased geographic distance. In the population ancestral to modern sister species, this pattern may hypothetically inflate population divergence time estimation due to the potential for allele frequency differences in subpopulations at the ends of the ancestral population. In this study, we analyze the relationship between the time to the most recent common ancestor and the population divergence time when the ancestral population model is a linear stepping-stone. Using coalescent simulations, we compare the coalescent time to the population divergence time for various ratios of the divergence time over the product of the population size and the deme number. Next, we simulate whole genomes to obtain SNPs, and use the Bayesian coalescent program SNAPP to estimate divergence times. We find that as the rate of migration between neighboring demes decreases, the coalescent time becomes significantly greater than the population divergence time when sampled from end demes. Divergence-time overestimation in SNAPP becomes severe when the divergence-to-population size ratio < 10 and migration is low. We conclude that studies estimating divergence times be cognizant of the potential ancestral population structure in an explicitly spatial context or risk dramatically overestimating the timing of population splits.

evolutionary biology↗