Evolution of Functional Genomic Diversity During a Bottleneck

TL;DR

This paper explores how population bottlenecks and range expansions affect genomic diversity, especially in regions with harmful mutations.

Contribution

The study reveals that functional genomic regions with deleterious mutations can show diversity patterns similar to selective sweeps during bottlenecks.

Findings

Regions with co-dominant deleterious mutations form more diversity troughs during bottlenecks.

Genetic diversity declines more slowly in regions with partially recessive mutations.

Low recombination regions and intermediate selection coefficients enhance these diversity patterns.

Abstract

Most species have been through population bottlenecks and range expansions, and the impact of these events on patterns of diversity has been well studied. In particular, it has been shown that initially rare neutral variants could readily fix on the front of range expansions or during bottlenecks, giving genomic signatures looking like selective sweeps. Here we expand on previous work by considering the dynamics of genomic diversity in (functional) regions harboring deleterious variants during bottlenecks or during range expansions modeled as serial founder effects. We find that regions with very low levels of diversity (troughs) looking like selective sweeps can also readily form in these functional regions. Additionally, their properties depend on the dominance level of deleterious mutations. The number of troughs is larger and increases more rapidly in regions with co-dominant deleterious mutations than in regions with recessive mutations. Interestingly, we find that genetic diversity declines less rapidly in regions with partially recessive mutations than in regions with codominant ones or in regions with only neutral mutations. These features are generally enhanced in low recombination regions and for intermediate selection coefficients. If most deleterious mutations in a genome are partially recessive, it follows that functional low recombination regions should better preserve genetic diversity during range expansions than neutral regions of the genome.

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