Ecological modeling of Long Interspersed elements reveals footprints of evolution and a role of chromatin in shaping their genome landscape in mammals.

Models derived from ecological theories have been applied to describe the dynamics of genomic transposable elements. Long Interspersed Elements (LINEs) are the most abundant class of transposable elements in mammals, still active in humans. A dynamical model is built here and applied to test if LINEs population can be modeled according to the neutral theory of biodiversity. Thereafter, by the introduction of a simple but realistic mechanism of competition for the internal promoters, the model undergoes a spontaneous breaking of the neutral assumption. Despite the apparent simplicity, the proposed model permits to cluster different Species by their Taxonomic Orders; to reveal several footprints of the evolutionary process in mammals, as the radiation of murine subfamily and Primates evolution; and, combined to chromatin state characterization of the LINE copies, to identify host-elements interaction evidence.