Interpretation of Variation Across Marker Loci as Evidence of Selection

Population structure and history have similar effects on the genetic diversity at all neutral loci. However, some marker loci may also have been strongly influenced by natural selection. Selection shapes genetic diversity in a locus-specific manner. If we could identify those loci that have responde...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Genetics (Austin) 2001-08, Vol.158 (4), p.1811-1823
Main Authors: Vitalis, Renaud, Dawson, Kevin, Boursot, Pierre
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Drosophila
Genetic Markers
Genetic Variation
Genetics
Genetics, Population
Haploidy
Life Sciences
marker
Models, Genetic
Models, Statistical
Models, Theoretical
Polymorphism, Genetic
Populations and Evolution
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Summary:Population structure and history have similar effects on the genetic diversity at all neutral loci. However, some marker loci may also have been strongly influenced by natural selection. Selection shapes genetic diversity in a locus-specific manner. If we could identify those loci that have responded to selection during the divergence of populations, then we may obtain better estimates of the parameters of population history by excluding these loci. Previous attempts were made to identify outlier loci from the distribution of sample statistics under neutral models of population structure and history. Unfortunately these methods depend on assumptions about population structure and history that usually cannot be verified. In this article, we define new population-specific parameters of population divergence and construct sample statistics that are estimators of these parameters. We then use the joint distribution of these estimators to identify outlier loci that may be subject to selection. We found that outlier loci are easier to recognize when this joint distribution is conditioned on the total number of allelic states represented in the pooled sample at each locus. This is so because the conditional distribution is less sensitive to the values of nuisance parameters.
ISSN:0016-6731
1943-2631
1943-2631
DOI:10.1093/genetics/158.4.1811