Biology subjects

Christian Schlötterer

Publications and source records attributed to Christian Schlötterer.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2016

CLEAR: Composition of Likelihoods for Evolve And Resequence Experiments

Experimental evolution (EE) studies are powerful tools for observing molecular evolution \"in-action\" from populations sampled in controlled and natural environments. The advent of next generation sequencing technologies has made whole-genome and whole-population sampling possible, even for eukaryotic organisms with large genomes, and allowed us to locate the genes and variants responsible for genetic adaptation. While many computational tests have been developed for detecting regions under selection, they are mainly designed for static (single time) data, and work best when the favored allele is close to fixation.\n\nEE studies provide samples over multiple time points, underscoring the need for tools that can exploit the data. At the same time, EE studies are constrained by the limited time span since onset of selection, depending upon the generation time for the organism. This constraint impedes adaptation studies, as the population can only be evolve-and-resequenced for a small number of generations relative to the fixation time of the favored allele. Moreover, coverage in pool-sequenced experiments varies across replicates and time points, leading to heterogeneous ascertainment bias in measuring population allele frequency across different measurements.\n\nIn this article, we directly address these issues while developing tools for identifying selective sweep in pool-sequenced EE of sexual organisms and propose Composition of Likelihoods for Evolve-And-Resequence experiments (CO_SCPLOWLEARC_SCPLOW). Extensive simulations show that CO_SCPLOWLEARC_SCPLOW achieves higher power in detecting and localizing selection over a wide range of parameters. In contrast to existing methods, the CO_SCPLOWLEARC_SCPLOW statistics are robust to variation of coverage. CO_SCPLOWLEARC_SCPLOW also provides robust estimates of model parameters, including selection strength and overdominance, as byproduct of the statistical test, while being orders of magnitude faster than existing methods. Finally, we apply the CO_SCPLOWLEARC_SCPLOW statistic to data from a study of D. melanogaster adaptation to alternating temperatures and discover enrichment of genes related to \"response to heat\" and \"cold acclimation\".

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2016

Estimating effective population size from temporal allele frequency changes in experimental evolution

The effective population size (Ne) is a major factor determining allele frequency changes in natural and experimental populations. Temporal methods provide a powerful and simple approach to estimate short-term Ne. They use allele frequency shifts between temporal samples to calculate the standardized variance, which is directly related to Ne. Here we focus on experimental evolution studies that often rely on repeated sequencing of samples in pools (Pool-Seq). Pool-Seq is cost-effective and outperforms individual-based sequencing in estimating allele frequencies, but it is associated with atypical sampling properties: additional to sampling individuals, sequencing DNA in pools leads to a second round of sampling increasing the estimated allele frequency variance. We propose a new estimator of Ne, which relies on allele frequency changes in temporal data and corrects for the variance in both sampling steps. In simulations, we obtain accurate Ne estimates, as long as the drift variance is not too small compared to the sampling and sequencing variance. In addition to genome-wide Ne estimates, we extend our method using a recursive partitioning approach to estimate Ne locally along the chromosome. Since type I error is accounted for, our method permits the identification of genomic regions that differ significantly in Ne. We present an application to Pool-Seq data from experimental evolution with Drosophila, and provide recommendations for whole-genome data. The estimator is computationally efficient and available as an R-package at https://github.com/ThomasTaus/Nest.

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2015

Low levels of transposable element activity in Drosophila mauritiana: causes and consequences

Transposable elements (TEs) are major drivers of genomic and phenotypic evolution, yet many questions about their biology remain poorly understood. Here, we compare TE abundance between populations of the two sister species D. mauritiana und D. simulans and relate it to the more distantly related D. melanogaster. The low population frequency of most TE insertions in D. melanogaster and D. simulans has been a key feature of several models of TE evolution. In D. mauritiana, however, the majority of TE insertions are fixed (66%). We attribute this to a lower transposition activity of up to 47 TE families in D. mauritiana, rather than stronger purifying selection. Only three families, including the extensively studied Mariner, may have a higher activity in D. mauritiana. This remarkable difference in TE activity between two recently diverged Drosophila species ({approx} 250,000 years), also supports the hypothesis that TE copy numbers in Drosophila may not reflect a stable equilibrium where the rate of TE gains equals the rate of TE losses by negative selection. We propose that the transposition rate heterogeneity results from the contrasting ecology of the two species: the extent of vertical extinction of TE families and horizontal acquisition of active TE copies may be very different between the colonizing D. simulans and the island endemic D. mauritiana. Our findings provide novel insights in the evolution of TEs in Drosophila and suggest that the ecology of the host species could be a major, yet underappreciated, factor governing the evolutionary dynamics of TEs.

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2015

The P-element strikes again: the recent invasion of natural Drosophila simulans populations

The P-element is one of the best understood eukaryotic transposable elements. It invaded Drosophila melanogaster populations within a few decades, but was thought to be absent from close relatives, including D. simulans. Five decades after the spread in D. melanogaster, we provide evidence that the P-element has also invaded D. simulans. P-elements in D. simulans appears to have been acquired recently from D. melanogaster probably via a single horizontal transfer event. Expression data indicate that the P-element is processed in the germline of D. simulans, and genomic data show an enrichment of P-element insertions in putative origins of replication, similar to that seen in D. melanogaster. This ongoing spread of the P-element in natural populations provides an unique opportunity to understand the dynamics of transposable element spreads and the associated piRNA defense mechanisms.

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2014

Massive bursts of transposable element activity in Drosophila

The evolutionary dynamics of transposable element (TE) insertions have been of continued interest since TE activity has important implications for genome evolution and adaptation. Here, we infer the transposition dynamics of TEs by comparing their abundance in natural D. melanogaster and D. simulans populations. Sequencing pools of more than 550 South African flies to at least 320-fold coverage, we determined the genome wide TE insertion frequencies in both species. We show that 46 (49%) TE families in D. melanogaster and 44 (47%) in D. simulans experienced a recent burst of activity. The bursts of activity affected different TE families in the two species. While in D. melanogaster retrotransposons predominated, DNA transposons showed higher activity levels in D. simulans. We propose that the observed TE dynamics are the outcome of the demographic history of the two species, with habitat expansion triggering a period of rapid evolution.

Evolutionary Biology↗