recombinationdriven

Recombination-driven is an adjective used to describe processes, patterns, or regimes in which genetic recombination is the principal force shaping variation and evolutionary trajectories. In population genetics, recombination is the exchange of genetic material between homologous chromosomes during meiosis, producing novel allele combinations and gradually eroding linkage disequilibrium between loci. A recombination-driven regime is one in which spatial variation in recombination rate, such as hotspots and cold spots, dominates the local architecture of haplotypes and influences evolutionary outcomes.

In practice, recombination-driven patterns affect how genetic association signals are distributed and how easily causal variants can be localized. High-recombination regions tend to generate fine-grained haplotype diversity and reduce long-range LD, aiding fine-mapping. Low-recombination regions preserve LD blocks and can complicate pinpointing causal variants but may also facilitate the hitchhiking of nearby variants. Recombination interacts with mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift to shape diversity, adaptability, and the spread of advantageous allele combinations.

Beyond genetics, the term may appear in cosmology to describe phenomena linked to the historical recombination epoch, when electrons combined with nuclei to form neutral atoms and the cosmic microwave background was imprinted. There, recombination-driven effects pertain to the physics of the early universe and the surface of last scattering.

Limitations: recombination is one of several forces shaping genomes; its relative importance varies by species, genomic region, and demographic history.