Category Archives: population genetics

How island foxes are living on the edge

Back in 2016, Robinson et al. (2016) published a genomic analyses of the Channel Island foxes and they showed that despite extremely low genome-wide diversity, the island foxes do not seem to be suffering from inbreeding depression. Read the post … Continue reading

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Evolution 2018: assortative mating, combinatorial speciation and genome dynamics

The Evolution conference in Montpellier is over, and as the sun, wine and great science become a memory, here is my recap of some conference highlights following on from a great first day: Sharon Strauss (University of California Davis) gave … Continue reading

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Evolution 2018 Day 1: From genomics in the wild, to new models of selection

It’s Evolution conference time! Evolution has long been my favourite fixture in the conference calendar, with its diverse mix of theoretical and empirical studies that span the full range of evolutionary biology. This year it’s the second Joint Congress on … Continue reading

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Population genetic simulation … in Lego

Julien Yann Dutheil, of the Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier, has a long track record of work in population genetics and genomics methods, particularly in the C++ programming language. He recently posted a video to YouTube, though, which … Continue reading

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La vie en rouge … l'algue rouge

Best laid plans of a #NewPI … what happens to them? Well, they often get triaged for more urgent things that were triaged earlier for more urgent things that were also triaged even earlier for more urgent things … and … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, blogging, conferences, evolution, fieldwork, haploid-diploid, mating system, natural history, population genetics, selection | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is the neutral theory dead?

You might have noticed how the world of genetics was shaking as the giants of theoretical population genetics started discussing some of the most fundamental questions in the arena of Twittersphere. This happened after the publication of Andrew Kern and Matthew … Continue reading

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Signal Boosting a Comprehensive Review of eDNA and Metabarcoding Studies

Everything is meta these days – metabarcoding, metagenomics, and now meta blog posts that are reviews of reviews. Much like every ecologist at least dabbles in the molecular world, so most of those predisposed to molecular ecology and population genetics … Continue reading

Posted in bioinformatics, community ecology, DNA barcoding, metagenomics, methods, microbiology, next generation sequencing, population genetics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The secret life of invaders

So I have this pet theory. And damn if the evidence doesn’t seem to be piling up. Am I living in the bubble of my own google alerts? Possibly. I’m an evolutionary ecologist and invasion biologist, and (surprise!) my pet … Continue reading

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Are population genomic scans for locally adapted loci too successful?

Last Friday, Molecular Ecology released an interesting new systematic review online ahead of print. Colin Ahrens and coauthors at a number of Australian research institutions compiled results from 66 papers reporting tests for locally adapted loci based on either FST … Continue reading

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Molecular ecology, the flowchart

Update: You can now buy a poster print of the Flowchart, with proceeds going to support The Molecular Ecologist! Towards the end of last semester my department’s evolutionary genetics journal club read Rasmus Nielsen’s terrific 2005 review of tests for … Continue reading

Posted in association genetics, bioinformatics, genomics, howto, infographic, linkage mapping, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection | 2 Comments