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The Effect of Neutral Nonadditive Gene Action on the Quantitative Index of Population Divergence
Carlos López-Fanjula, Almudena Fernándezb, and Miguel A. Toroba Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain
b Departamento de Mejora Genética Animal, SGIT-INIA, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Corresponding author: Carlos López-Fanjul, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain., clfanjul{at}bio.ucm.es (E-mail)
Communicating editor: Z-B. ZENG
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
For neutral additive genes, the quantitative index of population divergence (QST) is equivalent to Wright's fixation index (FST). Thus, divergent or convergent selection is usually invoked, respectively, as a cause of the observed increase (QST > FST) or decrease (QST < FST) of QST from its neutral expectation (QST = FST). However, neutral nonadditive gene action can mimic the additive expectations under selection. We have studied theoretically the effect of consecutive population bottlenecks on the difference FST - QST for two neutral biallelic epistatic loci, covering all types of marginal gene action. With simple dominance, QST < FST for only low to moderate frequencies of the recessive alleles; otherwise, QST > FST. Additional epistasis extends the condition QST < FST to a broader range of frequencies. Irrespective of the type of nonadditive action, QST < FST generally implies an increase of both the within-line additive variance after bottlenecks over its ancestral value (VA) and the between-line variance over its additive expectation (2FSTVA). Thus, both the redistribution of the genetic variance after bottlenecks and the FST - QST value are governed largely by the marginal properties of single loci. The results indicate that the use of the FST - QST criterion to investigate the relative importance of drift and selection in population differentiation should be restricted to pure additive traits.
ASSESSING the relative contributions of natural selection and genetic drift to population differentiation for quantitative traits is an important issue, in both evolutionary and conservation genetics (![]()
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Experimentally, this approach has been used in many studies (see ![]()
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Notwithstanding, the correspondence between QST and FST depends crucially on the assumption of pure additive gene action. This may not be an important restriction to the study of morphological traits, typically showing substantial additive genetic variation and little or no inbreeding depression, but will markedly affect that of life-history traits, usually exhibiting larger levels of nonadditive variance and, correspondingly, higher inbreeding depression (![]()
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In this article, we have investigated theoretically the effect of successive population bottlenecks on the difference FST - QST for two-locus neutral epistatic systems, covering all possible types of marginal gene action at the single-locus level (excluding overdominance). Our approach follows that of ![]()
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| THE MODEL |
|---|
We consider the model developed by ![]()
i), the marginal genotypic value of the heterozygote (
i, expressed as deviation from the midhomozygote value), and the marginal degree of dominance (
i) are given by
![]() |
(1) |
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(2) |
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(3) |
|
Thus, epistasis (k
2) modifies the basic properties of single loci, as
i,
i, and
i become dependent on the allelic frequencies at the other locus (qj); i.e., they are contingent on the genetic background. For a given k value, the basic (hi) and the marginal (
i) degrees of dominance become closer to each other as qj decreases. On the other hand,
i approaches zero (complete recessivity) as k and qj increase.
In an infinitely large panmictic population, expressions for the mean (ancestral mean M) and the additive component of the genetic variance (ancestral additive variance VA) can be obtained from Table 1, as
![]() |
(4) |
![]() |
(5) |
where Hi is the ancestral heterozygosity at the ith locus (Hi = 2piqi). These expressions are polynomial functions of pmi (i = 1, 2; m = 14) and their expected values at equilibrium, after t consecutive bottlenecks of N randomly sampled parents each (derived mean Mt* and additive variance VAt*), can readily be deduced by substituting pmi in Equation 4 and Equation 5 by the corresponding exact mth moment of the allelic frequency distribution with binomial sampling, given by ![]()
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It can be shown (![]()
hi < 1/2) and reinforcing epistasis (k > 2) or no epistasis (k = 2). Nevertheless, diminishing epistasis (k < 2) and/or basic dominance (incomplete or complete, 1/2 < hi
1) result in an unrealistic enhancement of the mean with inbreeding and, therefore, they are not considered further.
For pure additive action it is expected that Qt = Ft, as VAt* = (1 - Ft)VA and V(Mt) = 2FtVA (![]()
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In general, from Equation 5, the expected additive variance after bottlenecks can be given as
![]() |
(6) |
(![]()
it* and V(
i) are, respectively, the derived marginal average effect of gene substitution at the ith locus after t bottlenecks and its variance, which can be deduced by taking expectations or variances, respectively, in Equation 1. Equation 6 shows that any excess of VAt* over its ancestral value can be assigned to the spatial and temporal changes in
i (represented by V(
i) and
it*, respectively), which are both induced by drift, as well as to the covariance term, which depends on the ancestral properties of dominant loci [
cov(
2i, Hi) = 0 for pure additive or additive-by-additive gene action]. Of course, dominance may be basic (0
hi < 1/2) or marginal (hi = 1/2, k > 2). For nonepistatic complete recessives (hi = 0, k = 2),
it* =
i, V(
i) = Fts2Hi/2, and
cov(
2i, Hi) > 0. Thus,
![]() |
(7) |
where VD is the dominance component of the ancestral genetic variance,
(from Equation 2). Equation 7 shows that VAt* always exceeds its additive expectation, i.e., VAt* > (1 - Ft)VA. Furthermore, as
cov(
2i, Hi) > 0, the condition VAt* > VA can be given as VA < 2(1 - Ft)VD, implying qi < (1 - Ft)/(2 - Ft), i.e., qi < 1/2. These results also apply for incomplete recessives (0 < hi < 1/2).
In parallel, the between-line variance can be written as

where
. Thus, V(Mt) equals only its additive expectation (2FtVA) for
. Moreover, Qt will be larger than Ft if µ4 < 3FtVA + 5F2tVD and smaller otherwise, these conditions being slightly more restrictive than those for V(Mt)
2FtVA, unless Ft is large [e.g., V(Mt) > 2FtVA for µ4 > 3FtVA + F2tVD].
Summarizing, for neutral loci and nonadditive gene action (dominant and/or epistatic), Qt will generally depart from Ft, except in the particular case of V(Mt) = 2FtVAt*/(1 - Ft).
| NUMERICAL EVALUATION |
|---|
Three representative cases were studied, with additive (hi = 1/2) or recessive (hi = 0) basic gene action at both loci (s = 0.1) and strong reinforcing epistasis (k = 6) or with recessive nonepistatic action (hi = 0, k = 2). For each case, surfaces were represented (Fig 1), giving the values of the following contrasts after one bottleneck (N = 2, F1 = 0.25) for all possible combinations of allele frequencies at both loci: (1) the ratio of derived to ancestral additive components of variance VA1*/VA, (2) the ratio of the between-line variance to its expected value for additive gene action V(M1)/2F1VA, and (3) the difference F1 - Q1 between the inbreeding coefficient and the quantitative index of population divergence. With different basic gene action at each locus and epistasis, intermediate results were obtained (not shown).
|
For complete recessive nonepistatic action, Q1 < F1 for only low to moderate frequencies of the recessive allele at both loci (or for the recessive allele fixed in one locus and segregating at low frequency in the other); otherwise, Q1 > F1. The absolute value of the difference F1 - Q1 increased as the corresponding allele frequencies became more extreme. With additional epistasis, the condition Q1 < F1 holds for a much broader range of allele frequencies, and Q1 > F1 for only high frequencies of the recessive allele at both loci (or for the dominant allele fixed in one locus and the recessive one segregating at high frequency in the other). This situation is similar to that obtained with basic additive action and epistasis but, for low frequencies of both negative alleles, the excess of F1 over Q1 was, comparatively, much reduced. As shown by Equation 3, this can be ascribed to the marginal degrees of dominance (
i) becoming closer to the basic ones (hi = 1/2) as the frequencies of both negative alleles diminish. However, that excess was preserved when the negative allele is fixed in one locus and segregates at low frequency in the other as, in this case, the marginal degree of dominance of this second locus approaches zero (i.e., the locus becomes increasingly recessive). These results apply to populations subjected to a single bottleneck of any size, albeit the absolute value of F1 - Q1 decreased as the size of the bottleneck increased. With basic recessive action, increasing values of the epistatic factor k did not affect much the absolute value of the contrast (not shown) as, in this case, the basic and marginal degrees of dominance are the same. However, with epistasis and basic additive action, that absolute value was positively correlated with k, as the marginal degree of dominance tends to zero for increasing k values. Of course, for basic additive action without epistasis F1 = Q1.
As shown in Fig 1, Q1 < F1 holds approximately for the whole range of allele frequencies implying both V(M1) > 2F1VA and VA1* > VA, irrespective of the type of basic gene action, and the reverse was also true. These conditions also hold after consecutive bottlenecks, but the absolute value of Ft - Qt initially increases with the number of bottlenecks until a maximum is reached for Ft close to 0.5 and then subsequently decreases to zero (not shown). These changes have also been described by ![]()
| DISCUSSION |
|---|
We have shown that the Qt value generated by neutral dominant and/or epistatic loci, after t consecutive population bottlenecks, will always be larger or smaller than its additive expectation Ft, with the trivial exception determined by those particular combinations of allele frequencies fixing the boundary lines between the positive and negative regions of the Ft - Qt surface. Therefore, the use of the Ft - Qt difference as a criterion to investigate the relative importance of genetic drift and natural selection in population differentiation is restricted to pure additive traits, as nonadditive action at neutral loci can mimic the expectations for additive loci under divergent (Qt > Ft) or convergent selection (Qt < Ft). Moreover, for nonneutral nonadditive loci, selection will also affect (positively or negatively) the Ft - Qt value and this additional effect could even change the expected sign of that difference under neutrality.
For nonadditive gene action, previous theoretical work concerned with the divergence between Ft and Qt was restricted to the neutral additive-by-additive model, where Qt < Ft for Ft < 1 (![]()
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So far, this discussion has been limited to investigating the consequences of population bottlenecks on the Ft - Qt difference generated by two-locus nonadditive neutral systems. An extension of these results to the whole set of loci determining the additive variance of a quantitative trait will, in principle, require a complete specification of their genotypic effects and allele frequencies, as the contribution of loci with the same type of gene action to the total FST - QST value can even be of different sign, depending on their respective allele frequencies. Generalizations into multilocus systems can be made only if individual loci show the same type of gene action and segregate with similar frequencies. Only in this situation do our theoretical results provide a framework within which some experimental data can be interpreted. The following discussion is restricted to D. melanogaster and T. castaneum, where detailed genetic information on relevant traits is available.
At one extreme of the spectrum, we have traits such as abdominal bristle number or wing size and shape characteristics of the wing. In natural populations of Drosophila, very little or no inbreeding depression has been detected for those characters and their between- and within-line additive variances after bottlenecks very closely approached the expectations under the pure additive model (![]()
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Table 2 shows the between- and the additive within-line components of the genetic variance after one or three consecutive bottlenecks (N = 2) and the corresponding FST and QST values, for seven morphological traits in Drosophila (wing area, five angles whose vertices are defined by the intersections of the veins of the wing, and abdominal bristle number) and viability in Drosophila and Tribolium. As expected, FST and QST were very close for all morphological traits (average FST - QST = -0.018, range -0.030) and, for viability, FST was considerably larger than QST in all cases (average FST - QST = 0.14, range 0.080.30). It must be stressed that, in the experiments reviewed, all lines have been maintained under the same environmental conditions and have been subjected to a small number of bottlenecks (typically one). Thus, the effect of selection can be assumed to be small and the contrasting behavior of the FST - QST value for morphological traits and viability can be ascribed essentially to the changes induced by a known bout of random drift in sets of loci differing in their predominant type of gene action. In other words, the results in Table 2 can be taken as an experimental check of the validity of our theoretical predictions.
|
Incomplete information on the genetic properties of the traits studied makes the interpretation of the FST - QST difference more problematic. Estimates of FST (from molecular markers) and QST (for different quantitative traits) have been reported for sets of populations in a variety of plant and animal species (reviewed by ![]()
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Summarizing, the sign of the difference FST - QST will be indicative of selection for only those traits whose genetic variance is mostly (or totally) generated by segregation at pure additive loci. Although these traits are commonly assumed to be quasi-neutral, the FST - QST criterion may be useful to establish the validity of this hypothesis.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
We thank Michael Whitlock and Kevin Fowler for kindly allowing us to use their unpublished estimates of variance components for Drosophila wing traits. This study was supported by grant PB98-0814-C03-01 from the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura and RZ01-028-C2-1 from Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrarias.
Manuscript received July 17, 2002; Accepted for publication April 10, 2003.
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