Category Archives: theory

Can small populations benefit from genetic rescue?

The core dogma of conservation biology is clear: small populations are bad for species’ persistence. If we observe a population of endangered vertebrates harboring abundant deleterious mutations but without any reduction in fitness, what is happening there? I would like … 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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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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The Hype Cycle of Ancient DNA

Recently I saw a graph that I’ve learnt is called the Hype Cycle and is a methodology used in assessment of new technologies and their marketing. What strikes me about it is how well it fits my own research field, … Continue reading

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Diving into the inbreeding depression

This post is going to be a little melodramatic, but I hope that despite all the reading on inbreeding depression, you won’t get depressed. As the media finally started feeding us all the catastrophic news about the impact of global … Continue reading

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Humans, selection, evolution and ecological timescales … a potent cocktail

It’s been awhile since I last was able to write for TME. But, finally, I’ve stolen away some time to write about a recent study in Ecology Letters that I couldn’t put down once I started reading it. Yes, it’s about mating … Continue reading

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Divergence and Linked Background Selection

We have widely discussed the reduction in neutral diversity due to demography and linked selection effects (e.g. selective sweeps and hitchhiking, or background selection) in several previous posts (e.g see here, here, and here). However, how linked selection affects neutral divergence … Continue reading

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The almighty CRISPR-Cas9 technology: The future of conservation?

In the first post on CRISPR-Cas9, I’ve explained how bacteria and archaea create a “database” of infections and use it as a form of prokaryotic immunization. This time, I’m going to concentrate on how biotechnology turns this natural phenomenon into … Continue reading

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The almighty CRISPR-Cas9 technology: How does it work?

CRISPR-Cas9 took the whole world of biology by storm. Selected Science’s 2015 Breakthrough of the Year, the CRISPR-Cas9 technology is revolutionizing science. Within five years of the official announcement (Jinek et al. 2012), it became the genome-editing technique of choice. … Continue reading

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