Authors: Karl J Schmid Ottó Törjék Rhonda Meyer Heike Schmuths Matthias H Hoffmann Thomas Altmann
Publish Date: 2006/02/02
Volume: 112, Issue: 6, Pages: 1104-1114
Abstract
Populationbased methods for the genetic mapping of adaptive traits and the analysis of natural selection require that the population structure and demographic history of a species are taken into account We characterized geographic patterns of genetic variation in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana by genotyping 115 genomewide single nucleotide polymorphism SNP markers in 351 accessions from the whole species range using a matrixassisted laser desorption/ionization timeofflight assay and by sequencing of nine unlinked short genomic regions in a subset of 64 accessions The observed frequency distribution of SNPs is not consistent with a constantsize neutral model of sequence polymorphism due to an excess of rare polymorphisms There is evidence for a significant population structure as indicated by differences in genetic diversity between geographic regions Accessions from Central Asia have a low level of polymorphism and an increased level of genomewide linkage disequilibrium LD relative to accessions from the Iberian Peninsula and Central Europe Cluster analysis with the structure program grouped Eurasian accessions into K=6 clusters Accessions from the Iberian Peninsula and from Central Asia constitute distinct populations whereas Central and Eastern European accessions represent admixed populations in which genomes were reshuffled by historical recombination events These patterns likely result from a rapid postglacial recolonization of Eurasia from glacial refugial populations Our analyses suggest that mapping populations for association or LD mapping should be chosen from regional rather than a specieswide sample or identified genetically as sets of individuals with similar average genetic distancesThis work was funded by the German Ministry of Science BMBF as part of the GABI project 0312275A to T A and by the EmmyNoether program of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Schm 13542/2 to K J S We are grateful to Henriette RingysBeckstein Maik Zehnsdorf and Melanie Lück for excellent technical assistance We also thank K Bachmann M Clauss B Haubold M Koornneef A LawtonRauh T MitchellOlds S RamosOnsins and E Wheeler for discussions and comments on an earlier version of the manuscript
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