Data from: DNA motifs are not general predictors of recombination in two Drosophila sister species.

Meiotic recombination is crucial for chromosomal segregation, and
facilitates the spread of beneficial and removal of deleterious mutations.
Recombination rates frequently vary along chromosomes and Drosophila
melanogaster exhibits a remarkable pattern. Recombination rates gradually
decrease towards centromeres and telomeres, with a dramatic impact on
levels of variation in natural populations. Two close sister species, D.
simulans and D. mauritiana do not only have higher recombination rates,
but also exhibit a much more homogeneous recombination rate that only
drops sharply very close to centromeres and telomeres. Because certain
sequence motifs are associated with recombination rate variation in D.
melanogaster, we tested whether the difference in recombination landscape
between D. melanogaster and D. simulans can be explained by the genomic
distribution of recombination-rate associated sequence motifs. We
constructed the first high-resolution recombination map for D. simulans
based on 189 haplotypes from a natural D. simulans population, and
searched for short sequence motifs linked with higher than average
recombination in both sister species. We identified five consensus motifs
significantly associated with higher than average chromosome-wide
recombination rates in at least one species and present in both. Testing
fine resolution associations between motif density and recombination, we
found strong and positive associations genome-wide over a range of scales
in D. melanogaster, while the results were equivocal in D. simulans.
Despite the strong association in D. melanogaster, we did not find a
decreasing density of these short-repeat motifs towards centromeres and
telomeres. We conclude that the density of recombination-associated repeat
motifs cannot explain the large-scale recombination landscape in D.
melanogaster, nor the differences to D. simulans. The strong association
seen for the sequence motifs in D. melanogaster likely reflects their
impact influencing local differences in recombination rates along the
genome.