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Global adaptation confounds the search for local adaptation

View ORCID ProfileTom R. Booker, Sam Yeaman, Michael C. Whitlock
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/742247
Tom R. Booker
Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CanadaBiodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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  • ORCID record for Tom R. Booker
  • For correspondence: booker@zoology.ubc.ca
Sam Yeaman
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
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Michael C. Whitlock
Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CanadaDepartment of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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Abstract

Spatially varying selection promotes variance in allele frequencies, increasing genetic differentiation between the demes of a metapopulation. For that reason, outliers in the genome wide distribution of summary statistics measuring genetic differentiation, such as FST, are often interpreted as evidence for alleles which contribute to local adaptation. However, in spatially structured populations, the spread of beneficial mutations with spatially uniform effects can also induce transient genetic differentiation and numerous theoretical studies have suggested that species-wide, or global, adaptation makes a substantial contribution to molecular evolution. In this study, we ask whether such global adaptation affects the genome-wide distribution of FST and generates statistical outliers which could be mistaken for local adaptation. Using forward-in-time population genetic simulations assuming parameters for the rate and strength of beneficial mutations similar to those that have been estimated for natural populations, we show the spread of globally beneficial in parapatric populations can readily generate FST outliers, which may be misinterpreted as evidence for local adaptation. The spread of beneficial mutations causes selective sweeps at flanking sites, so the effects of global versus local adaptation may be distinguished by examining patterns of nucleotide diversity along with FST. Our study suggests that global adaptation should be considered in the interpretation of genome-scan results and the design of future studies aimed at understanding the genetic basis of local adaptation.

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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 4.0 International license.
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Posted August 21, 2019.
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Global adaptation confounds the search for local adaptation
Tom R. Booker, Sam Yeaman, Michael C. Whitlock
bioRxiv 742247; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/742247
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Global adaptation confounds the search for local adaptation
Tom R. Booker, Sam Yeaman, Michael C. Whitlock
bioRxiv 742247; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/742247

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