Effect of Heterogeneity in Recombination Rate on Variation in Realised Relationship

Abstract

Individuals of specified pedigree relationship vary in the proportion of the genome they share identical by descent, i.e. in their realised or actual relationship. Basing predictions of the variance in realised relationship solely on the proportion of the map length shared implicitly assumes that both recombination rate and genetic information are uniformly distributed along the genome, ignoring the possible existence of recombination hotspots, and failing to distinguish between coding and non-coding sequences. In this paper we quantify the effects of heterogeneity in recombination rate at broad and fine scale levels on the variation in realised relationship. A chromosome with variable recombination rate usually shows more variance in realised relationship than does one having the same map length with constant recombination rate, especially if recombination rates are higher towards chromosome ends. Reductions in variance can also be found, and the overall pattern of change is quite complex. In general, local (fine-scale) variation in recombination rate, e.g. hotspots, has a small influence on the variance in realised relationship. Differences in rates across longer regions and between chromosome ends can increase or decrease the variance in realised relationship, depending on the genomic architecture.