linkage

Adam Auton and colleagues [1] sequenced a panel of chimpanzees to examine recombination in that species, thereby constructing a chimp-specific genetic map. This paper doesn't give any new information about chimpanzee population history or structure, but does have some conclusions about the evolution of recombination in the human and chimpanzee lineages:

Our results also reveal the different processes that operate at fine and broad scales. At broad scales, we find substantial correlation in recombination rate between the species, which is disrupted by chromosomal rearrangement. However, even among conserved regions, less than 40% of the variance in chimpanzee recombination rate at 1 Mb can be explained by the human rate. Determining the factors that shape stasis and change in broad-scale recombination rates presents a key challenge in the study of recombination. A population sequencing approach, such as the one taken here, should enable further informative studies of recombination across a wide range of species.

They also find that local substitution biases and polymorphism biases emerge in concert with recombination rates. Sites near structural polymorphisms in humans, such as chromosomal inversions and the fusion of human chromosome 2, buck the genome-wide trend of correlation between human and chimpanzee recombination rates.

This process is important to understand if we want to use today's genetics to examine the ancestral population of humans and chimpanzees. It will be interesting to consider how the changes in recombination may affect genetic models of speciation.

References