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African Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans populations have similar levels of sequence variability, suggesting comparable effective population sizes.

ABSTRACT: Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans are two closely related species with a similar distribution range. Many studies suggested that D. melanogaster has a smaller effective population size than D. simulans. As most evidence was derived from non-African populations, we readdressed this question by sequencing 10 X-linked loci in five African D. simulans and six African D. melanogaster populations. Contrary to previous results, we found no evidence for higher variability, and thus larger effective population size, in D. simulans. Our observation of similar levels of variability of both species will have important implications for the interpretation of patterns of molecular evolution.

SUBMITTER: Nolte V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2206089 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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African Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans populations have similar levels of sequence variability, suggesting comparable effective population sizes.

Nolte Viola V Schlötterer Christian C

Genetics 20080101 1

Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans are two closely related species with a similar distribution range. Many studies suggested that D. melanogaster has a smaller effective population size than D. simulans. As most evidence was derived from non-African populations, we readdressed this question by sequencing 10 X-linked loci in five African D. simulans and six African D. melanogaster populations. Contrary to previous results, we found no evidence for higher variability, and thus larger effectiv ...[more]

PMID: 18202383

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Project description:BackgroundAdaptive protein evolution is common in several Drosophila species investigated. Some studies point to very weak selection operating on amino-acid mutations, with average selection intensities on the order of Nes approximately in D. melanogaster and D. simulans. Species with lower effective population sizes should undergo less adaptation since they generate fewer mutations and selection is ineffective on a greater proportion of beneficial mutations.ResultsHere I study patterns of polymorphism and divergence at 91 X-linked loci in D. miranda, a species with a roughly 5-fold smaller effective population size than D. melanogaster. Surprisingly, I find a similar fraction of amino-acid mutations being driven to fixation by positive selection in D. miranda and D. melanogaster. Genes with higher rates of amino-acid evolution show lower levels of neutral diversity, a pattern predicted by recurrent adaptive protein evolution. I fit a hitchhiking model to patterns of polymorphism in D. miranda and D. melanogaster and estimate an order of magnitude higher selection coefficients for beneficial mutations in D. miranda.ConclusionThis analysis suggests that effective population size may not be a major determinant in rates of protein adaptation. Instead, adaptation may not be mutation-limited, or the distribution of fitness effects for beneficial mutations might differ vastly between different species or populations. Alternative explanation such as biases in estimating the fraction of beneficial mutations or slightly deleterious mutation models are also discussed.

| S-EPMC2633301 | biostudies-literature

Surprising differences in the variability of Y chromosomes in African and cosmopolitan populations of Drosophila melanogaster.

Project description:The nonrecombining Drosophila melanogaster Y chromosome is heterochromatic and has few genes. Despite these limitations, there remains ample opportunity for natural selection to act on the genes that are vital for male fertility and on Y factors that modulate gene expression elsewhere in the genome. Y chromosomes of many organisms have low levels of nucleotide variability, but a formal survey of D. melanogaster Y chromosome variation had yet to be performed. Here we surveyed Y-linked variation in six populations of D. melanogaster spread across the globe. We find surprisingly low levels of variability in African relative to Cosmopolitan (i.e., non-African) populations. While the low levels of Cosmopolitan Y chromosome polymorphism can be explained by the demographic histories of these populations, the staggeringly low polymorphism of African Y chromosomes cannot be explained by demographic history. An explanation that is entirely consistent with the data is that the Y chromosomes of Zimbabwe and Uganda populations have experienced recent selective sweeps. Interestingly, the Zimbabwe and Uganda Y chromosomes differ: in Zimbabwe, a European Y chromosome appears to have swept through the population.

| S-EPMC3527246 | biostudies-literature

Parallel Gene Expression Differences between Low and High Latitude Populations of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans.

Project description:Gene expression variation within species is relatively common, however, the role of natural selection in the maintenance of this variation is poorly understood. Here we investigate low and high latitude populations of Drosophila melanogaster and its sister species, D. simulans, to determine whether the two species show similar patterns of population differentiation, consistent with a role for spatially varying selection in maintaining gene expression variation. We compared at two temperatures the whole male transcriptome of D. melanogaster and D. simulans sampled from Panama City (Panama) and Maine (USA). We observed a significant excess of genes exhibiting differential expression in both species, consistent with parallel adaptation to heterogeneous environments. Moreover, the majority of genes showing parallel expression differentiation showed the same direction of differential expression in the two species and the magnitudes of expression differences between high and low latitude populations were correlated across species, further bolstering the conclusion that parallelism for expression phenotypes results from spatially varying selection. However, the species also exhibited important differences in expression phenotypes. For example, the genomic extent of genotype × environment interaction was much more common in D. melanogaster. Highly differentiated SNPs between low and high latitudes were enriched in the 3' UTRs and CDS of the geographically differently expressed genes in both species, consistent with an important role for cis-acting variants in driving local adaptation for expression-related phenotypes.

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Gene expression variation in African and European populations of Drosophila melanogaster.

Project description:BackgroundDifferences in levels of gene expression among individuals are an important source of phenotypic variation within populations. Recent microarray studies have revealed that expression variation is abundant in many species, including Drosophila melanogaster. However, previous expression surveys in this species generally focused on a small number of laboratory strains established from derived populations. Thus, these studies were not ideal for population genetic analyses.ResultsWe surveyed gene expression variation in adult males of 16 D. melanogaster strains from two natural populations, including an ancestral African population and a derived European population. Levels of expression polymorphism were nearly equal in the two populations, but a higher number of differences was detected when comparing strains between populations. Expression variation was greatest for genes associated with few molecular functions or biological processes, as well as those expressed predominantly in males. Our analysis also identified genes that differed in expression level between the European and African populations, which may be candidates for adaptive regulatory evolution. Genes involved in flight musculature and fatty acid metabolism were over-represented in the list of candidates.ConclusionOverall, stabilizing selection appears to be the major force governing gene expression variation within populations. However, positive selection may be responsible for much of the between-population expression divergence. The nature of the genes identified to differ in expression between populations may reveal which traits were important for local adaptation to the European and African environments.

| S-EPMC2395247 | biostudies-literature

Codon usage bias and effective population sizes on the X chromosome versus the autosomes in Drosophila melanogaster.

Project description:Codon usage bias (CUB) in Drosophila is higher for X-linked genes than for autosomal genes. One possible explanation is that the higher effective recombination rate for genes on the X chromosome compared with the autosomes reduces their susceptibility to Hill-Robertson effects, and thus enhances the efficacy of selection on codon usage. The genome sequence of D. melanogaster was used to test this hypothesis. Contrary to expectation, it was found that, after correcting for the effective recombination rate, CUB remained higher on the X than on the autosomes. In contrast, an analysis of polymorphism data from a Rwandan population showed that mean nucleotide site diversity at 4-fold degenerate sites for genes on the X is approximately three-quarters of the autosomal value after correcting for the effective recombination rate, compared with approximate equality before correction. In addition, these data show that selection for preferred versus unpreferred synonymous variants is stronger on the X than the autosomes, which accounts for the higher CUB of genes on the X chromosome. This difference in the strength of selection does not appear to reflect the effects of dominance of mutations affecting codon usage, differences in gene expression levels between X and autosomes, or differences in mutational bias. Its cause therefore remains unexplained. The stronger selection on CUB on the X chromosome leads to a lower rate of synonymous site divergence compared with the autosomes; this will cause a stronger upward bias for X than A in estimates of the proportion of nonsynonymous mutations fixed by positive selection, for methods based on the McDonald-Kreitman test.

| S-EPMC3603305 | biostudies-literature

Gene expression variation in African and European populations of Drosophila melanogaster

Project description:Background: Differences in levels of gene expression among individuals are an important source of phenotypic variation within populations. Recent microarray studies have revealed that expression variation is abundant in many species, including Drosophila melanogaster. However, previous expression surveys in this species generally focused on a small number of laboratory strains established from derived populations. Thus, these studies were not ideal for population genetic analyses. Results: We surveyed gene expression variation in adult males of 16 D. melanogaster strains from two natural populations, including an ancestral African population and a derived European population. Levels of expression polymorphism were nearly equal in the two populations, but a higher number of differences was detected when comparing strains between populations. Expression variation was greatest for genes associated with few molecular functions or biological processes, as well as those expressed predominantly in males. Our analysis also identified genes that differed in expression level between the European and African populations, which may be candidates for adaptive regulatory evolution. Genes involved in flight musculature and fatty acid metabolism were over-represented in the list of candidates. Conclusions: Overall, stabilizing selection appears to be the major force governing gene expression variation within populations. However, positive selection may be responsible for much of the between-population expression divergence. The nature of the genes identified to differ in expression between populations may reveal which traits were important for local adaptation to the European and African environments. Keywords: Natural variation

2008-01-21 | GSE8843 | GEO

Molecular variation at the vermilion locus in geographically diverse populations of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans.

Project description:We surveyed nucleotide variation at vermilion in population samples of Drosophila melanogaster from Africa, Asia and the Americas to test the hypothesis that the vermilion gene was a target of balancing selection and to improve our understanding of geographic differentiation. Patterns of polymorphism and divergence showed no evidence for non-neutral evolution. However, the frequency spectrum of polymorphic sites in some non-African samples departed from the neutral equilibrium expectation. Furthermore, there were high levels of linkage disequilibrium in non-African samples, despite apparently high rates of crossing over in the vermilion region. In the absence of comparable data from other loci in these same population samples, we cannot determine whether the unusual patterns of variation at vermilion reflect demographic as opposed to locus-specific events. We found surprisingly high levels of differentiation at vermilion between U.S. and Congo samples of D. simulans. In light of previously published allozyme and mtDNA data that provided no evidence for significant differentiation between African and non-African D. simulans populations, the vermilion data raise the possibility that both mtDNA and allozymes have been influenced by selection.

| S-EPMC1206658 | biostudies-other

Sociocultural behavior, sex-biased admixture, and effective population sizes in Central African Pygmies and non-Pygmies.

Project description:Sociocultural phenomena, such as exogamy or phylopatry, can largely determine human sex-specific demography. In Central Africa, diverging patterns of sex-specific genetic variation have been observed between mobile hunter-gatherer Pygmies and sedentary agricultural non-Pygmies. However, their sex-specific demography remains largely unknown. Using population genetics and approximate Bayesian computation approaches, we inferred male and female effective population sizes, sex-specific migration, and admixture rates in 23 Central African Pygmy and non-Pygmy populations, genotyped for autosomal, X-linked, Y-linked, and mitochondrial markers. We found much larger effective population sizes and migration rates among non-Pygmy populations than among Pygmies, in agreement with the recent expansions and migrations of non-Pygmies and, conversely, the isolation and stationary demography of Pygmy groups. We found larger effective sizes and migration rates for males than for females for Pygmies, and vice versa for non-Pygmies. Thus, although most Pygmy populations have patrilocal customs, their sex-specific genetic patterns resemble those of matrilocal populations. In fact, our results are consistent with a lower prevalence of polygyny and patrilocality in Pygmies compared with non-Pygmies and a potential female transmission of reproductive success in Pygmies. Finally, Pygmy populations showed variable admixture levels with the non-Pygmies, with often much larger introgression from male than from female lineages. Social discrimination against Pygmies triggering complex movements of spouses in intermarriages can explain these male-biased admixture patterns in a patrilocal context. We show how gender-related sociocultural phenomena can determine highly variable sex-specific demography among populations, and how population genetic approaches contrasting chromosomal types allow inferring detailed human sex-specific demographic history.

| S-EPMC3603314 | biostudies-literature

Population structure among African and derived populations of Drosophila simulans: evidence for ancient subdivision and recent admixture.

Project description:Previous studies based on allozyme variation have found little evidence for genetic differentiation in Drosophila simulans. On the basis of DNA sequence variation at two nuclear loci in four African populations of D. simulans, we show that there is significant structure to D. simulans populations within Africa. Variation at one of the loci, vermilion, appears to be neutral and supports an eastern African origin for European and American populations. Samples from the West Indies, Europe, and North America had a nucleotide diversity lower than that of African populations at vermilion and show nonequilibrium haplotype distributions at both vermilion and G6pd, consistent with a hypothesis of recent bottleneck and possibly also admixture in the history of these populations. Directional selection, previously documented at G6pd, appears to have occurred within the coalescence time of the species, obscuring deep population history.

| S-EPMC1460727 | biostudies-other

Exploring the causes of small effective population sizes in cyst nematodes using artificial Globodera pallida populations.

Project description:The effective size of a population is the size of an ideal population which would undergo genetic drift at the same rate as the real population. The balance between selection and genetic drift depends on the effective population size ( Ne), rather than the real numbers of individuals in the population ( N). The objectives of the present study were to estimate Ne in the potato cyst nematode Globodera pallida and to explore the causes of a low Ne/ N ratio in cyst nematodes using artificial populations. Using a temporal analysis of 24 independent populations, the median Ne was 58 individuals (min Ne = 25 and max Ne = 228). Ne is commonly lower than N but in the case of cyst nematodes, the Ne/ N ratio was extremely low. Using artificial populations showed that this low ratio did not result from migration, selection and overlapping generations, but could be explain by the fact that G. pallida populations deviate in structure from the assumptions of the ideal population by having unequal sex ratios, high levels of inbreeding and a high variance in family sizes. The consequences of a low Ne, resulting in a strong intensity of genetic drift, could be important for their control because G. pallida populations will have a low capacity to adapt to changing environments.

| S-EPMC6367184 | biostudies-literature

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