Detecting genetic signals of selection in heavily bottlenecked reindeer populations by comparing parallel founder events

Abstract Founder populations are of special interest to both evolutionary and conservation biologists, but the detection genetic signals selection in these is challenging due their demographic history. Geographically separated founder likely have been subjected similar pressures provide an ideal rare opportunity overcome challenges. Here we take advantage such a situation generated when small, isolated reindeer were established on island South Georgia, using this system look for empirical evidence overcoming strong drift. We 70 k ddRADseq single nucleotide polymorphism database two parallel screened signatures soft sweeps. find genomic region under shared among populations, support our findings with Wright–Fisher model simulations assess power specificity interpopulation scans—namely Bayescan, OutFLANK, PCadapt newly developed scan called Genome Wide Differentiation Scan (GWDS)—in context pairwise source–founder comparisons. Our indicate that loci small most probably detected by GWDS, strengthen hypothesis outlier represents true locus selection. explore possible, relevant functional roles genes linkage loci.