Appearance and sweep of a gene duplication: adaptive response and potential for a new function in the mosquito Culex pipiens

Evolution of a new gene function is a fundamental process of adaptation. Gene duplication followed by divergence due to relaxed selection on redundant copies has been viewed as the predominant mechanism involved in this process. At a macroevolutionary scale, evidence for this scenario came from the analysis of sequences of genes families. However, even if several genetic models have described the different potential microevolutionary scenario for a new function to evolve, little is really known about the initial evolutionary dynamics of such processes. We analyze such early dynamics in natural populations of the mosquito Culex pipiens polymorphic for a duplication at Ace.1, a locus involved in insecticide resistance. The date of occurrence and the selective advantages of the duplication were estimated using frequency data. We propose a scenario where the spread of a duplication is driven, from the very beginning, by selection due to insecticide treatment