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The determinants of genetic diversity in butterflies – Lewontin’s paradox revisited

Alexander Mackintosh, Dominik R. Laetsch, Alexander Hayward, Martin Waterfall, Roger Vila, View ORCID ProfileKonrad Lohse
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/534123
Alexander Mackintosh
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FL Edinburgh, Scotland
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Dominik R. Laetsch
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FL Edinburgh, Scotland
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Alexander Hayward
2Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK
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Martin Waterfall
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FL Edinburgh, Scotland
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Roger Vila
3Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37, ESP-08003 Barcelona, Spain
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Konrad Lohse
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FL Edinburgh, Scotland
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  • ORCID record for Konrad Lohse
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Abstract

Under the neutral theory genetic diversity is expected to be a simple function of population size. However, comparative studies have consistently failed to find any strong correlation between measures of census population size and genetic diversity. Instead, a recent comparative study across several animal phyla identified propagule size as the strongest predictor of genetic diversity, suggesting that r-strategists that produce many offspring but invest little in each, have greater long-term effective population sizes. We present a comparison of genome-wide levels of genetic diversity across 38 species of European butterflies (Papilionoidea). We show that across butterflies, genetic diversity varies over an order of magnitude and that this variation cannot be explained by differences in abundance, fecundity, host plant use or geographic range. Instead, we find that genetic diversity is negatively correlated with body size and positively with the length of the genetic map. This suggests that variation in genetic diversity is determined both by fluctuation in Ne and the effect of selection on linked neutral sites.

Footnotes

  • ↵* konrad.lohse{at}ed.ac.uk

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 29, 2019.
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The determinants of genetic diversity in butterflies – Lewontin’s paradox revisited
Alexander Mackintosh, Dominik R. Laetsch, Alexander Hayward, Martin Waterfall, Roger Vila, Konrad Lohse
bioRxiv 534123; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/534123
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The determinants of genetic diversity in butterflies – Lewontin’s paradox revisited
Alexander Mackintosh, Dominik R. Laetsch, Alexander Hayward, Martin Waterfall, Roger Vila, Konrad Lohse
bioRxiv 534123; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/534123

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