Journal
HEREDITY
Volume 99, Issue 4, Pages 389-396Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/sj.hdy.6801014
Keywords
W chromosomes; mitochondria; Hill-Robertson effects; birds; mammals
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Interference among loci subject to selection ( the Hill Robertson effect) may considerably reduce levels of adaptation and variability in genomic regions that lack recombination. Y- or W chromosomes are particularly vulnerable to such effects, since they represent large, non-recombining blocks of genetic material. In birds, the W chromosome and mitochondrial genomes are both maternally transmitted, and hence fail to recombine with each other, whereas in mammals the Y chromosome is paternally transmitted. We show here that mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity is reduced in non-ratite birds compared with mammals. After considering possible confounding factors, such as differences in generation times, mutation rates and demography, we conclude that Hill-Robertson effects associated with the W chromosome provide the most likely explanation for this difference.
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