Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:44:34.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The correlation of rare alleles with heterozygosity: determination of the correlation for the neutral models*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2009

Walter F. Eanes
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794, U.S.A.
Richard K. Koehn
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794, U.S.A.

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We have shown in an earlier paper that there is routinely a large correlation between the heterozygosity of common (P > 0·05) alleles and the number of rare (P ≤ 0·05) alleles at allozyme loci in Drosophila. We postulated that this correlation might be due to a high rate of intragenic recombination. While these correlations are large enough to be significantly different from zero, their relation to the mean correlations expected under the neutrality models is unknown. This paper reports the findings of a computer analysis determining the correlation for neutral allele pools as specified by the infinite-allele and charge-state models.

In the analysis, mean correlations for a range of Neμ values and sample sizes of 100 and 1000 genes varied from a high of 0·284 to a low of – 0·780. For the particular values of Neμ relating to the heterozygosity of Drosophila allozymes in natural populations, tests of the empirical correlations to the means expected under the neutral models are made. Most empirical correlations are significantly different from the mean correlations under the neutrality models.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

References

REFERENCES

Ayala, F. J., Powell, J. R., Tracey, M. L., Mourao, C. A. & Perez-Salas, S. (1972). Enzyme variability in the Drosophila willistoni group. IV. Genie variation in natural populations of D. willistoni. Genetics 70, 113139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayala, F. J., Tracey, M. L., Barr, L. G., McDonald, J. F. & Perez-Salas, S. (1974). Genetic variability in natural populations of five Drosophila species and the hypothesis of selective neutrality of protein polymorphisms. Genetics 77, 343384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chovnick, A., Ballantyne, G. H., Baillie, D. L. & Holm, D. G. (1970). Gene conversion in higher organisms: half-tetrad analysis of recombination within the rosy cistron of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 66, 315329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ewens, W. J. (1972). The sampling theory of selectively neutral alleles. Theoretical Population Biology 3, 87112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fogel, S., Hurst, D. D. & Mortimer, R. K. (1971). Gene conversion in unselected tetrads from multi-point crosses. In Stadler Symposium, vol. 1, pp. 89110. Missouri Agricultural Experimental Station, Columbia.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. B. (1972). Enzyme polymorphisms. Evidence that they are not selectively neutral. Nature, New Biology 237, 170171.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. B. & Feldman, M. W. (1973). On the hypothesis that polymorphic enzyme alleles are selectively neutral. I. The evenness of the allele frequency distribution. Theoretical Population Biology 4, 209221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimura, M. & Crow, J. F. (1964). The number of alleles that can be maintained in a finite population. Genetics 49, 725728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimura, M. & Ohta, T. (1975). Distribution of allelic frequencies in a finite population under stepwise production of neutral alleles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72, 27612764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koehn, R. K. & Eanes, W. F. (1976). An analysis of allelic diversity in natural populations of Drosophila: The correlation of rare alleles with heterozygosity. In Population Genetics and Ecology (ed. Karlin, S. and Nevo, E.), pp. 377390. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Koehn, R. K. & Eanes, W. F. (1977). Subunit size and genetic variation in natural populations of Drosophila. Theoretical Population Biology (in the Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nei, M., Maruyama, T. & Chakraborty, R. (1975). The bottleneck effect and genetic variability in populations. Evolution 29, 110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohno, S., Stenius, C., Christian, L. & Schipmann, G. (1969). De novo mutation-like events observed at the 6PGD locus of the Japanese quail, and the principle of polymorphism breeding more polymorphism. Biochemical Genetics 3, 417428.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohta, T. & Kimura, M. (1973). A model of mutation appropriate to estimate the number of electrophoretically detectable alleles in a finite population. Genetical Research 22, 201204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohta, T. & Kimura, M. (1974). Simulation studies on electrophoretically detectable genetic variability in a finite population. Genetics 76, 615624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prakash, S. (1973). Patterns of gene variation in central and marginal populations of Drosophila robusta. Genetics 75, 347369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saura, A. (1974). Genie variation in Scandinavian populations of Drosophila bifasciata. Hereditas 76, 161172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokal, R. R. & Rohlf, F. J. (1969). Biometry. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Stadler, D. R. & Kariya, B. (1969). Intragenic recombination at the mtr locus of Neurospora with segregation at an unselected site. Genetics 63, 291316.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuno, K. (1975). Esterase gene frequency differences and linkage equilibrium in Drosophila virilis from different ecological habitats. Genetics 80, 585594.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ward, R. D. (1977). Relationship between enzyme heterozygosity and quaternary structure. Biochemical Genetics 15, 123135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Watt, W. B. (1972). Intragenic recombination as a source of population genetic variability. American Naturalist 106, 737753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, J. E. & Atherton, L. (1968). Genetic control of interallelic recombination at the LDH B locus in brook trout. Genetics 60, 240.Google Scholar