Direct Estimates of Recombination from Rhesus Macaque Pedigrees

Recombination is the process of exchange between maternal and paternal chromosomal segments which gives rise to new allele combinations in the offspring. The rate of recombination refers to the chances that such crossing over events will take place. Recombination is an especially important process for driving genetic diversity and therefore evolution. However, the specifics of the factors affecting the recombination frequency and how the rate itself can evolve have not been the focus of many studies in the past. The purpose of this study was to utilize sequenced genomes of parent-offspring trios of Rhesus Macaque to create a high quality dataset from which a direct, sex-specific, estimate of recombination rate can be calculated for the species.