Fine-scale diversity and extensive recombination in a quasisexual bacterial population occupying a broad niche
Abstract
Extensive fine-scale genetic diversity is found in many microbial species across varied environments, but for most, the evolutionary scenarios that generate the observed variation remain unclear. Deep sequencing of a thermophilic cyanobacterial population and analysis of the statistics of synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms revealed a high rate of homologous recombination and departures from neutral drift consistent with the effects of genetic hitchhiking. A sequenced isolate genome resembled an unlinked random mixture of the allelic diversity at the sampled loci. These observations suggested a quasisexual microbial population that occupies a broad ecological niche, with selection driving frequencies of alleles rather than whole genomes.
- Publication:
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Science
- Pub Date:
- May 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.aaa4456
- Bibcode:
- 2015Sci...348.1019R
- Keywords:
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- MICROBIO