ArticleeLife2021
Quantifying the relationship between genetic diversity and population size suggests natural selection cannot explain Lewontin's Paradox.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 73 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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73 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 151 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Genomic structural variation rescues a classic biological invader from a population bottleneck.Science advances · 2026Article
- Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- A Recipe for a Good π. How to Properly Estimate Population Genetics Summary Statistics and Why we Should Systematically Report Them.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Global adaptation to climate change in the twilight zone revealed by shared signals of selection in mesopelagic lanternfishes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Evolutionary rate correlations reveal long-term co-evolutionary interactions inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Ubiquitous impact of natural selection on nucleotide diversity in 178 species of primates.Genome biology · 2026Article
- Background selection in recombining genomes and its consequences for the maintenance of variation in complex traits.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Mitochondrial structure despite nuclear panmixia: sex-specific dispersal dictates population structure in sperm whales.Heredity · 2026Article
- Seasonal fluctuations in fitness result in severe reductions in effective population size.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Large future genetic diversity losses are predicted from conservation indicators even with habitat protection.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Pleistocene demographic histories dominate contemporary genomic diversity in a continental radiation of Himalayan-Hengduan songbirds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Estimating the Reduction in Genetic Diversity from Background Selection under Non-equilibrium Demography and Partial Selfing.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
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- High-quality genome assembly of Chironomus riparius and its population history in European populations.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Must Epidemiologically Impactful Vector Control Interventions Disrupt Mosquito Population Structure? A Case Study of a Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial.Evolutionary applications · 2025Article
- Large Inversion Polymorphisms are Widespread in North American Songbirds.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Abstract
Neutral theory predicts that genetic diversity increases with population size, yet observed levels of diversity across metazoans vary only two orders of magnitude while population sizes vary over several. This unexpectedly narrow range of diversity is known as Lewontin's Paradox of Variation (1974). While some have suggested selection constrains diversity, tests of this hypothesis seem to fall short. Here, I revisit Lewontin's Paradox to assess whether current models of linked selection are capable of reducing diversity to this extent. To quantify the discrepancy between pairwise diversity and census population sizes across species, I combine previously-published estimates of pairwise diversity from 172 metazoan taxa with newly derived estimates of census sizes. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, I show this relationship is significant accounting for phylogeny, but with high phylogenetic signal and evidence that some lineages experience shifts in the evolutionary rate of diversity deep in the past. Additionally, I find a negative relationship between recombination map length and census size, suggesting abundant species have less recombination and experience greater reductions in diversity due to linked selection. However, I show that even assuming strong and abundant selection, models of linked selection are unlikely to explain the observed relationship between diversity and census sizes across species.
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