{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Factors driving effective population size and pan-genome evolution in bacteria.
{Author}: Bobay LM;Ochman H;
{Journal}: BMC Evol Biol
{Volume}: 18
{Issue}: 1
{Year}: 10 2018 12
{Factor}: 3.436
{DOI}: 10.1186/s12862-018-1272-4
{Abstract}: Knowledge of population-level processes is essential to understanding the efficacy of selection operating within a species. However, attempts at estimating effective population sizes (Ne) are particularly challenging in bacteria due to their extremely large census populations sizes, varying rates of recombination and arbitrary species boundaries.<BR>In this study, we estimated Ne for 153 species (152 bacteria and one archaeon) defined under a common framework and found that ecological lifestyle and growth rate were major predictors of Ne; and that contrary to theoretical expectations, Ne was unaffected by recombination rate. Additionally, we found that Ne shapes the evolution and diversity of total gene repertoires of prokaryotic species.<BR>Together, these results point to a new model of genome architecture evolution in prokaryotes, in which pan-genome sizes, not individual genome sizes, are governed by drift-barrier evolution.