RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 On the importance of skewed offspring distributions and background selection in viral population genetics
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 048975
DO 10.1101/048975
A1 Kristen K. Irwin
A1 Stefan Laurent
A1 Sebastian Matuszewski
A1 Séverine Vuilleumier
A1 Louise Ormond
A1 Hyunjin Shim
A1 Claudia Bank
A1 Jeffrey D. Jensen
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/24/048975.abstract
AB Many features of virus populations make them excellent candidates for population genetic study, including a very high rate of mutation, high levels of nucleotide diversity, exceptionally large census population sizes, and frequent positive selection. However, these attributes also mean that special care must be taken in population genetic inference. For example, highly skewed offspring distributions, frequent and severe population bottleneck events associated with infection and compartmentalization, and strong purifying selection all affect the distribution of genetic variation but are often not taken in to account. Here, we draw particular attention to multiple-merger coalescent events and background selection, discuss potential mis-inference associated with these processes, and highlight potential avenues for better incorporating them in to future population genetic analyses.