Hardy-Weinberg and allelic frequencies shifts suggest selection
could act against melanin deposition
Inspecting deviations from HWE in the tawny owl population revealed
punctual deviations from expected Hardy-Weinberg genotype frequencies:602-G/C , 2009Offspring :
X2=5.20, p=0.02;
2018Adults+Offspring : X2=5.11,
p=0.02; 2021Adults : X2=7,
p=0.001; 3657-C/T , 2009Offspring :
X2=6.25, p=0.01 (Table 3). Noticeably all reported
deviations were due to an excess of homozygotes for the reference
allele, combinations that yield the lowest probability of an individual
being grey. Pairwise comparison of genotype frequencies between years
also suggested the possibility of selection (Fig. S4), though we cannot
discard a temporal effect since major deviations from the F-stat
distribution obtained with 100 replicates and p-values < 0.01
related mostly to comparisons involving the 2009 cohort (Fig. S5).