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The effective founder effect in a spatially expanding population.

Benjamin M Peter1, Montgomery Slatkin

  • 1Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720; Current address: Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 60637. bp@berkeley.edu.

Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution
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Range expansions cause genetic diversity loss and allele frequency clines. A new model quantifies the founder effect strength, revealing stronger effects in the Americas than Europe for Arabidopsis thaliana.

Keywords:
Biogeographygene flowpopulation geneticspopulation structure

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Area of Science:

  • Population genetics
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Ecological modeling

Background:

  • Species range expansions often lead to decreased genetic diversity and clinal allele frequencies.
  • These patterns are frequently attributed to serial founder events during colonization.
  • Understanding the genetic consequences of range expansions is crucial for evolutionary studies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a model for quantifying the strength of the founder effect in expanding populations.
  • To investigate how genetic drift influences spatial gradients in allele frequencies.
  • To assess the robustness of founder effect estimates to migration.

Main Methods:

  • Development of a population expansion model using a branching process approximation.
  • Analysis of spatial gradients to infer genetic drift experienced by subpopulations.
  • Estimation of the net average strength of the founder effect and effective founder size.
  • Application of the model to empirical data from Arabidopsis thaliana.

Main Results:

  • Spatial gradients in allele frequencies are shown to reflect varying levels of genetic drift.
  • The branching process model accurately predicts simulation results for expanding populations.
  • Estimates of effective founder size are robust to confounding factors like migration.
  • Arabidopsis thaliana data indicate a founder effect approximately three times stronger in the Americas compared to Europe.

Conclusions:

  • The developed model provides a robust method for measuring founder effect strength in expanding populations.
  • The stronger founder effect in the Americas suggests a more recent and rapid expansion of Arabidopsis thaliana in this region.
  • This approach offers insights into the evolutionary dynamics of range expansions across diverse species.