Loss of MHC and neutral variation in Peary caribou: genetic drift is not mitigated by balancing selection or exacerbated by MHC allele distributions.

ABSTRACT: Theory and empirical results suggest that the rate of loss of variation at Mhc and neutral microsatellite loci may differ because selection influences Mhc genes, and because a high proportion of rare alleles at Mhc loci may result in high rates of loss via drift. Most published studies compare Mhc and microsatellite variation in various contemporary populations to infer the effects of population size on genetic variation, even though different populations are likely to have different demographic histories that may also affect contemporary genetic variation. We directly compared loss of variation at Mhc and microsatellite loci in Peary caribou by comparing historical and contemporary samples. We observed that similar proportions of genetic variation were lost over time at each type of marke

SUBMITTER: Taylor SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3360046 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature