Monthly Archives: November 2014

From cats to rats: two studies on domestication and tameness

Posted on 18 Nov, 2014 by Noah Snyder-Mackler

Anyone who has ever read Charles Darwin is acutely aware of his fascination with domestication – particularly how he fancied fancy pigeons. Darwin drew on his domestication obsession while writing his book, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, association genetics, domestication, genomics, methods, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, quantitative genetics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Here, kitty, kitty. The cat genome sheds light on feline evolution and domestication

Posted on 17 Nov, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

Although this kitten looks fierce, Montague et al. recently uncovered the genes responsible for the taming of the house cat, Felis silvestris catus, which coincided with the development of agriculture about 10,00 years ago. Grain crops attracted rodents into human … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, population genetics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The forest resounding at rare intervals with the note of … reproductive isolation

Posted on 14 Nov, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Hybrid zones are often used as a window with which to gaze upon the evolutionary process (Barton and Hewitt 1989). With the advent of genomic tools, it is possible to detect the genomic signatures and the architecture underlying reproductive isolation. In … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, conservation, genomics, next generation sequencing, population genetics, speciation | 1 Comment

Admixture maps in R for Dummies

Posted on 13 Nov, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

Before we get started, I’d like to point everyone to an excellent tutorial here by Kim Gilbert on making maps in R. I have been grappling with overlaying admixture plots, and migration routes on top of maps recently, and thought I’d put … Continue reading →

Posted in howto, population genetics, R, software, STRUCTURE | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Is genetics a requirement for restoration?

Posted on 12 Nov, 2014 by Rob Denton

The fields of conservation and genetics have relied heavily on one another for quite a while now (they even made an aptly named journal together!). Using genetic information is now an accepted, and even expected, step in recognizing and protecting … Continue reading →

Posted in community ecology, conservation, Molecular Ecology, the journal, natural history, population genetics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bugs fighting bugs: the evolution of the arthropod immune system.

Posted on 11 Nov, 2014 by Noah Snyder-Mackler

Since the beginning of time, animals have needed to protect themselves from invaders. They primarily do so via their innate immune system, in which trained killer cells attack foreign pathogens – ranging from microscopic bacteria to macroscopic worms. While we … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, phylogenetics | 1 Comment

Different genetic paths lead to the same phenotypic destination

Posted on 10 Nov, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

Male field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) on the Hawaiian archipelago sing to attract mates using acoustic structures on their wings. While singing makes the ladies swoon, it also gives away the male cricket’s location, making it vulnerable to fatal attacks by … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, population genetics | 1 Comment

Happy as a clam, despite genetic uniformity

Posted on 7 Nov, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

  Introduced populations of non-native species are often associated with low genetic diversity, as measured by neutral genetic loci, and, thus, considered a paradox (but see Roman and Darling 2007). The study by Lise-Marie Pigneur and colleagues documents an extreme example … Continue reading →

Posted in natural history, population genetics | Leave a comment

Highlights from the 2014 Ecological Genomics Symposium

Posted on 6 Nov, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

Ecological genomics is a rapidly growing field that aims to understand the genetic mechanisms responsible for the adaptive responses of organisms to their environment. I’m jumping into this area of research as a postdoc in the Kelly Lab at Louisiana … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, conferences, genomics | Leave a comment

The Ust'-Ishim Genome

Posted on 6 Nov, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

This year has been monumental in pulling together several interesting pieces in the human evolution out of Africa puzzle (Lazaridis et al., Ruiz-Linares et al., Skoglund et al., Huerta-Sanchez et al., Jeong et al., Pickrell et al., Raghavan et al., … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, mutation, Paleogenomics, population genetics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments