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Monthly Archives: May 2015
Sexual selection and population fitness
Sexual selection or non-random mate choice acts to ‘filter’ out less competitive/desirable phenotypes from a population. In the presence of small effect mutation loads, i.e. small fitness differences between a mutation-free population, and one with persistent deleterious mutations, sexual selection … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, evolution, mutation, population genetics
Tagged ecological speciation, genomics, natural selection, population genetics
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The diversity hiding in lizard blood
Pathogens have got this reproduction thing figured out. Clone yourself and grow populations quickly? Sure. Occasionally reproduce sexually? Absolutely. The have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too reproductive modes among biological lineages that are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction throw a mighty wrench … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, speciation, species delimitation
Tagged BPP, cryptic diversity, pathogens, species concepts
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The genomics of bee sociality
Bee species cover the spectrum of sociality: there are solitary bees, there are eusocial bees – which are divided into facultative eusocial (the ones that can be either solitary or eusocial depending on external cues) and obligate eusocial bees, and … Continue reading
Highlights from the 2015 Society of Systematic Biologists standalone meeting
Last week the Society of Systematic Biologists hosted its first standalone meeting from May 20-22 at the University of Michigan. The meeting included workshops, panel debates, three sessions of lightning talks, and an evening reception at the UM Museum of Natural … Continue reading
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A cladoceran invasion
My posts are about to take on a strong bias towards field work and interviews with the researchers kind enough to offer assistance to our lab as we embark on a Northern Hemisphere tour. Not only will we be sampling seaweeds … Continue reading
Posted in population genetics
Tagged Daphnia, invasion, Japan, microsatellites, mtDNA
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Conversation starter: common mistakes in population genetics
When interpreting the results, it is important to focus more on biological relevance than on statistical significance. That does not mean that significance is unimportant; results that have a straightforward interpretation but are not significant should not be considered. On the … Continue reading
Posted in community, methods, Molecular Ecology, the journal
Tagged mistakes, opinion, study design
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Getting swole with Burmese pythons: the transcriptomics of python feeding
Burmese pythons can get pretty big. And they get even bigger after they eat a meal: like a mouse or an alligator. Indeed, their guts undergo rapid changes in form and function during and after a feeding bout. And, since … Continue reading
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Easy as ABC
Determining the whens and hows of biological invasions using genetic data is a major goal of molecular ecology. One such tool is approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) which is being used for inferring invasion histories. In a new paper in Heredity, Benazzo et … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, methods, population genetics
Tagged ABC, invasion, microsatellites
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