Recombination Rate Variation Modulates Gene Sequence Evolution Mainly via GC-Biased Gene Conversion, Not Hill-Robertson Interference, in an Avian System

The ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitution rates (omega) is often used to measure the strength of natural selection. However, omega may be influenced by linkage among different targets of selection, that is, Hill-Robertson interference (HRI), which reduces the efficacy of selection. Recombination modulates the extent of HRI but may also affect omega by means of GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC), a process leading to a preferential fixation of G:C ("strong," S) over A:T ("weak," W) alleles. As HRI and gBGC can have opposing effects on omega, it is essential to understand their relative impact to make proper inferences of omega. We used a model that separately estimated S-to-S, S-to-W, W-to-S, and W-to-W substitution rates in 8,423 avian genes in the Ficedula flycatcher lineage. We found that the W-to-S substitution rate was positively, and the S-to-W rate negatively, correlated with recombination rate, in accordance with gBGC but not predicted by HRI. The W-to-S rate further showed the strongest impact on both d(N) and d(S). However, since the effects were stronger at 4-fold than at 0-fold degenerated sites, likely because the GC content of these sites is farther away from its equilibrium, omega slightly decreases with increasing recombination rate, which could falsely be interpreted as a consequence of HRI. We corroborated this hypothesis analytically and demonstrate that under particular conditions, omega can decrease with increasing recombination rate. Analyses of the site-frequency spectrum showed that W-to-S mutations were skewed toward high, and S-to-W mutations toward low, frequencies, consistent with a prevalent gBGC-driven fixation bias.