Monthly Archives: February 2015

Just like an elephant and a manatee …

There is a positive correlation between the time since two lineages have diverged and the strength of the reproductive barriers between them. Rothfels et al. (2015) have described a natural hybridization event between two fern genera that diverged from one … Continue reading

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dN(eutralist) > dS(electionist)? Part 1

In a new series of posts, I will now proffer neutralist and selectionist reviews of recent publications. I point readers to an excellent review of the debate by Masatoshi Nei (2005). Besides being a fun exercise in PoV’s, I hope … Continue reading

Posted in evolution, genomics, mutation, population genetics, theory | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

The conservation genomics gap

Is genomic data a boon or a hurdle for conservation? Aaron Shafer and Jochen Wolf take a strong stance on the issue in a newly-published review in Trends in Ecology and Evolution: genomic data could be really useful for conservation, but not … Continue reading

Posted in conservation, genomics | Tagged | 6 Comments

Bigger on the inside

The Molecular Ecologist receives a small commission for purchases made on Bookshop.org via links from this post. Evolutionary biology is, fundamentally, the study of how populations of living things change over time. Different creatures live different lives, and at any given point in … Continue reading

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This is your brain on Human accelerated regulatory enhancer (HARE5)

Four decades have passed since King and Wilson published their seminal paper “Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees“. In it, they proposed that the large behavioral and morphological differences between us and our closest relatives, chimpanzees, could not … Continue reading

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Coral conservation through assisted evolution

Coral reefs occupy a tiny portion of the world’s oceans (see map below) but their biodiversity is hugely disproportionate to their size. More than 450 million people from 109 countries live in close proximity to coral reefs and depend upon the … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, conservation, evolution, methods | Leave a comment

Show me the power

Describing the patterns of genetic structure and mating system variation in presents challenges from the outset of sample collection to data analysis (see this post and this post). At the beginning of February, I had the pleasure to collaborate with Sean … Continue reading

Posted in conservation, evolution, genomics, interview, methods, population genetics, software, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Interspecific gene flow enhances vectorial capacity

There are charismatic cases of gene flow between species, such as Neanderthals (see also Arun’s posts here and here), but the role of introgression in evolution remains poorly documented. Recently diverged species have incomplete reproductive isolation and can hybridize. Rapid … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, phylogenetics, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Twice Mixed? Testing hypotheses of Neanderthal Introgression

Human migration in, and out of Africa was wrought with complex patterns of admixture (see my previous post summarizing the story so far). Of note were some recent findings on the disparity in amounts of Neanderthal introgression/ancestry between East Asians … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, mutation, Paleogenomics, population genetics | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Comparing runs and counting K

If you are someone who has any interaction with population genetics, the letter K may cause you a distinct feeling of uneasiness. Identifying the number of distinct genetic clusters (often represented as K) in a data set is a primary component in … Continue reading

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