Abstract

Inferring adaptation and evolutionary change by combining data from field studies and genomics is an exciting new area in evolutionary biology but also presents challenges. These challenges are particularly acute when the focal trait has a polygenic architecture, because many long‐term field studies are sample‐size‐limited compared to studies of humans and model organisms, making the detection of loci that contribute to trait variation difficult. In a recent comment, Perrier and Charmantier (2018); hereafter P&C, highlight these issues and draw attention to several analyses described in our recent publication (Bosse et al. 2017) on the evolution of longer bill length in UK populations of the great tit (Parus major). While we support the overall message of P&C – that caution should be exercised when making inferences about long‐term evolutionary trends from shorter ecological time series – we also address some of the specific criticisms that P&C raised about the analyses described in Bosse et al. (2017). P&C's comments can broadly be split into two sets of queries. The first considers how phenotypic variation is distributed in space and time. The second explores how signatures of selective sweeps can be sensitive to local (in the genomic sense) variation in recombination rate.

Highlights

  • TIME SERIES OF BILL LENGTH In Bosse et al (2017) we presented a number of analyses supporting the contention that bill length in UK populations had been under positive selection, one of which was the observation that, over a 25-year time series, bill length had significantly increased

  • Evolution Letters published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB)

  • The authors cite the work of Rosemary and Peter Grant as their inspiration for searching for sudden changes in the trajectory of bill morphology in the great tit time series, but that work was motivated by selection witnessed after a sudden climatic event; an El Nino event in 1982– 1983 causing exceptionally heavy rainfall (Grant and Grant 1993)

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Summary

Introduction

TIME SERIES OF BILL LENGTH In Bosse et al (2017) we presented a number of analyses supporting the contention that bill length in UK populations had been under positive selection (see below), one of which was the observation that, over a 25-year time series, bill length had significantly increased. A sample of 291 museum specimens of great tits to describe a difference in bill length between UK and mainland European populations.

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