Positive correlation between recombination rate and nucleotide diversity is shown under domestication selection in the chicken genome

Positive correlation between recombination rate and nucleotide diversity has been observed in a wide variety of eukaryotes on megabase scale. On the basis of genome-wide chicken genetic variation map generated by comparing three domestic breeds with wild ancestor and the positions of markers on the genetic linkage map, we found that SNPs rates were similar for all chromosomes while the recombina- tion rates increased in micro chromosomes. In other words no correlation exists in chromosome size. Nevertheless, when we scanned the genome by calculating the values of each characteristic within non-overlapping windows, instead of single value for each chromosomes, the nucleotide diversity was found to be significantly correlated with the recombination rate (r=0.27, P<0.0005). Furthermore, the significant association not only existed between these two features, but also existed between all 6 pairwise combinations of nucleotide diversity, recombination rate, GC content and average gene length. This co-variation is very meaningful for the studies of sequence evolution.