Chromosomal inversions are increasingly found to differentiate locally adapted populations. This adaptive role is predictable because reduced recombination protects allelic combinations from gene flow. However, we are far from understanding how frequently inversions contribute to local adaptation and how widespread this phenomenon is across species. In a “From the Cover” article in this issue of Molecular Ecology , Huang, Andrew, Owens, Ostevik, and Rieseberg (2020) provide an important step towards this goal not only by finding adaptive inversions in a sunflower ecotype, but also by reversing the approach used to investigate the link between adaptation and inversions. Most studies compare two phenotypes and uncover divergence at a few regions, of which some can subsequently be identified as inversions. In contrast, Huang et al first catalogue putative inversions and then test genotype–environment associations, which allows them to ask systematically whether inversions may be adaptive and in which ecological contexts. They achieve that by revisiting a previous reduced‐representation sequencing (RAD‐sequencing) data set, demonstrating the suitability of this method to detect inversions in species with limited genomic resources. As such, Huang et al pave the way for a better understanding of the evolutionary role of structural genomic variation and highlight that accounting for inversions in population genomics is now possible, and much needed, in a wider range of organisms.

中文翻译：

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充分利用种群基因组数据，以了解染色体反演对适应和物种形成的重要性。

越来越多地发现染色体倒置可以区分当地适应的人群。这种适应性作用是可预测的，因为减少的重组可保护等位基因组合免受基因流的影响。但是，我们还远没有弄清反演如何频繁地促进局部适应，以及这种现象在物种间的分布如何。在本期《分子生态学》的“从封面开始”文章中Huang，Andrew，Owens，Ostevik和Rieseberg（2020）不仅朝着向日葵生态型寻找适应性反转，而且颠倒了研究适应性和反转之间联系的方法，为实现这一目标迈出了重要的一步。大多数研究比较了两种表型，并在少数区域发现了差异，随后可以将其中一些识别为倒置。相反，Huang等人首先对推定的倒置进行分类，然后测试基因型与环境之间的关联，这使他们能够系统地询问倒置是否可能具有适应性以及在何种生态环境下。他们通过重新访问以前的简化表示测序（RAD-sequencing）数据集来实现这一目标，证明了该方法适用于检测基因组资源有限的物种的倒位。因此，