211T Poster - Population Genetics
Thursday June 09, 9:15 PM - 10:00 PM

Authors:
Christina Del Carpio ¹; Maria Izabel Cavassim ¹; Pedro Perez ¹; Robert Wayne ¹; Kirk Lohmueller ^1,2

Affiliations:
1) University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; 2) University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Human Genetics

Keywords:
Molecular Evolution

In sexually reproducing species, meiotic recombination enables the proper alignment and segregation of homologous chromosomes while introducing new combinations of alleles into populations. Recombination rates are known to vary on the level of species, populations, sexes, and individuals. Thus, it is a trait that can be acted upon by evolutionary forces such as natural selection and genetic drift. Here we investigated the possible changes in recombination across canids using high-coverage WGS data from a population of North American (NA) gray wolves and one breed of domestic dogs (pugs).We inferred recombination rates from patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) using Pyrho, which also models demographic history. Based on this analysis, NW gray wolves (n = 14, mean coverage = ~38X, mean r = 3.1e-9 per bp) have a ~18X higher mean recombination rate than dogs (n = 15, mean coverage = ~48X, mean r = 1.7e-10 per bp). Simulations suggest that this difference in mean recombination rate is not driven solely by differences in demography. Thus, other evolutionary forces may be in play. Future analyses include the identification of recombination hotspots and comparisons of their locations between populations as well as the inclusion of other dog breeds. This work will result in fine-scale recombination maps for NA gray wolves and multiple domesticated dog breeds. The comparison of genetic maps will highlight the possible changes in recombination rate between these sister taxa since the domestication of dogs while also informing about the plasticity of this trait through time.