Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential
4 affiliations
- 1Institute of Ecology and Evolution, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh
- 2School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex
- 3Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen
- 4Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter
Abstract
The capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognized as a global conservation priority. Adaptation requires additive (heritable) genetic variation for traits that influence survival and fecundity, but measuring this variation is difficult, particularly in species of conservation concern. Instead, molecular genetic diversity is often used to infer adaptive potential. However, previous research has cast doubt on the suitability of traditional molecular markers (allozymes and microsatellites) for this purpose given their weak relationship with heritability-a common measure of additive genetic variance. Advances in sequencing technology have since shifted focus toward nucleotide diversity and variation in functional regions, but their practicality for predicting adaptive potential remains debated. Furthermore, heritability itself is a poor proxy for adaptive potential because it depends on environmental variance. We collated 2,113 published estimates of evolvability-a measure of additive genetic variance that avoids environmental confounding-across 193 eukaryotic species, and evaluated how well evolvability is predicted by molecular diversity. We find that microsatellite and nucleotide diversity are not significantly correlated to each other, and neither predict evolvability. Nucleotide diversity explains 1.1% of interspecific differences in evolvability and doubling nucleotide diversity only corresponds to a 11.7% increase in evolvability. With theoretical work, we show that such weak associations are expected. Together, our results suggest that simple molecular measures of genetic variation are insufficient for predicting adaptive potential and reliance on these metrics risks misinforming conservation management.
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BibTeX
@article{abson2026nucleotide,
title = {{Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential}},
author = {Katie Abson and Lillith C. Zijmers and Elizabeth A. Mittell and Euan A. Young and Erik Postma and Adam Eyre‐Walker and Jarrod D. Hadfield},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2536181123},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2536181123},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential
AU - Katie Abson
AU - Lillith C. Zijmers
AU - Elizabeth A. Mittell
AU - Euan A. Young
AU - Erik Postma
AU - Adam Eyre‐Walker
AU - Jarrod D. Hadfield
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/29
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2536181123
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2536181123
AB - The capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognized as a global conservation priority. Adaptation requires additive (heritable) genetic variation for traits that influence survival and fecundity, but measuring this variation is difficult, particularly in species of conservation concern. Instead, molecular genetic diversity is often used to infer adaptive potential. However, previous research has cast doubt on the suitability of traditional molecular markers (allozymes and microsatellites) for this purpose given their weak relationship with heritability-a common measure of additive genetic variance. Advances in sequencing technology have since shifted focus toward nucleotide diversity and variation in functional regions, but their practicality for predicting adaptive potential remains debated. Furthermore, heritability itself is a poor proxy for adaptive potential because it depends on environmental variance. We collated 2,113 published estimates of evolvability-a measure of additive genetic variance that avoids environmental confounding-across 193 eukaryotic species, and evaluated how well evolvability is predicted by molecular diversity. We find that microsatellite and nucleotide diversity are not significantly correlated to each other, and neither predict evolvability. Nucleotide diversity explains 1.1% of interspecific differences in evolvability and doubling nucleotide diversity only corresponds to a 11.7% increase in evolvability. With theoretical work, we show that such weak associations are expected. Together, our results suggest that simple molecular measures of genetic variation are insufficient for predicting adaptive potential and reliance on these metrics risks misinforming conservation management.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -