Going beyond SNPs: The role of structural genomic variants in adaptive evolution and species diversification

Although single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) were initially thought to make-up the majority of selectable variation (Morin et al. 2004; Sachidanandam et al. 2001), it is becoming increasingly recognized that structural variation represents a significant, yet often poorly understood, source of genetic variation. It is only within the past 10 years, aided by the development of genomic technologies such as high-throughput and later 3 generation sequencing, that the extent of intra-and interspecific structural variation has been investigated in a number of non-model species (Chain & Feulner 2014; Fan & Meyer 2014). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.