Population genomic analysis reveals a rich speciation and demographic history of orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii)
Abstract
To gain insights into evolutionary forces that have shaped the history of Bornean and Sumatran populations of orang-utans, we compare patterns of variation across more than 11 million single nucleotide polymorphisms found by previous mitochondrial and autosomal genome sequencing of 10 wild-caught orang-utans. Our analysis of the mitochondrial data yields a far more ancient split time between the two populations (~3.4 million years ago) than estimates based on autosomal data (0.4 million years ago), suggesting a complex speciation process with moderate levels of primarily male migration. We find that the distribution of selection coefficients consistent with the observed frequency spectrum of autosomal non-synonymous polymorphisms in orang-utans is similar to the distribution in humans. Our analysis indicates that 35% of genes have evolved under detectable negative selection. Overall, our findings suggest that purifying natural selection, genetic drift, and a complex demographic history are the dominant drivers of genome evolution for the two orang-utan populations.
Citation
Ma , X , Kelley , J L , Eilertson , K , Musharoff , S , Degenhardt , J D , Martins , A L , Vinar , T , Kosiol , C , Siepel , A , Gutenkunst , R N & Bustamante , C D 2013 , ' Population genomic analysis reveals a rich speciation and demographic history of orang-utans ( Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii ) ' , PLoS One , vol. 8 , no. 10 , e77175 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077175
Publication
PLoS One
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1932-6203Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2013 Ma et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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