Different parts of the genome can vary widely in their evolutionary histories and sequence divergence from other species. Indeed, some of the most interesting biology (e.g., hybridization, horizontal gene transfer, variable mutation rates across the genome) is revealed by the discordant relationships between taxa across the genome. The goal for much of evolutionary genetics is centred on understanding the evolutionary processes by which such varied signatures arise and are maintained. Many evolutionary genetics studies seek to identify signatures of positive selection between two closely related ecotypes or taxa by delineating regions with particularly high divergence relative to a genome‐wide average, often termed “divergence outliers.” In a From the Cover article in this issue of Molecular Ecology, Booker et al. take a major step forward in showing that recombination rate differences are sufficient to create false positive divergence outliers, even under neutrality. They demonstrate that the variance of genome scan metrics is especially high in regions with low recombination rates, consistent with previous work. Furthermore, they show that both relative and absolute measures of divergence (F_ST and D_XY, respectively) as well as other commonly used statistics in genome scans (e.g., π_W, Tajima's D and H12) all have similar covariance between variance and local recombination rate. Finally, Booker et al. show that low recombination regions will tend to produce more outliers if genome‐wide averages are used as cut‐offs to define genomic outliers. Booker et al.’s results suggest that recombination rate variation, even under neutral conditions, can shape genome scans for selection, and this important variable can no longer be ignored.

中文翻译：

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是时候停止在基因组扫描地毯下的广泛重组率了

基因组的不同部分的进化历史和与其他物种的序列差异可能很大。确实，一些最有趣的生物学（例如，杂交，水平基因转移，整个基因组中可变的突变率）通过整个基因组中的分类单元之间的不一致关系得以揭示。许多进化遗传学的目标都集中在理解进化过程上，通过这些过程来产生和维持这些不同的特征。许多进化遗传学研究试图通过描绘相对于全基因组平均水平（通常被称为“差异离群值”）具有特别高差异性的区域，来识别两种密切相关的生态类型或生物分类之间的正向选择特征。在本期《分子生态学》的封面文章中，Booker等。向前迈出了一大步，表明即使在中性条件下，重组率差异也足以产生假阳性差异离群值。他们证明基因组扫描指标的变异在重组率低的区域特别高，这与以前的工作一致。此外，它们显示出的发散相对和绝对的措施（˚F _ST和d _XY，分别地），以及在基因组扫描等常用统计（例如，π _W¯¯（田岛D和H12）在方差和局部重组率之间都具有相似的协方差。最后，布克等。结果表明，如果将全基因组范围内的平均数用作定义基因组异常值的临界值，则低重组区域将倾向于产生更多异常值。Booker等人的研究结果表明，即使在中性条件下，重组率的变化也可以影响基因组扫描的选择，而这一重要变量将不再被忽略。