Category Archives: adaptation

Not everyone likes it hot … winter or not

Posted on 26 Dec, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

On this Boxing Day, many of us may be bracing against winter storms.  For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we might all be dreaming of summer weather (including those of us who think a Southern Californian version of winter downright … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, natural history | Leave a comment

C.L. Gloger's favorite owl

Posted on 10 Dec, 2014 by Rob Denton

Biologists love clines. We’ve been mentally masticating on clines for decades. Clines in body size. Clines in color. Clines in heart size! Clines that go in circles! Recognizing clinal patterns in phenotypes or genotypes is fun, but discovering the mechanisms behind … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Molecular Ecology, the journal, population genetics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Et tu, Brute? Black-legged ticks use genes co-opted from bacteria to fight bacterial infection

Posted on 8 Dec, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

Horizontal gene transfer occurs when genes are passed between individuals by mechanisms other than reproduction. It is common in bacteria and occasionally happens between highly divergent groups (for example, monocot genes transferred to eudicots, fungal genes transferred to aphids, bacterial genes transferred … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, horizontal gene transfer, microbiology | Leave a comment

The Evolution of Recombination

Posted on 4 Dec, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

In a recent publication, Lesecque et al (2014). provide key evidence that fills in some of the blanks to an age old question – how do recombination hotspots evolve? Their analyses of major PRDM9 (a polymorphic zinc finger protein with … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, mutation, population genetics, theory | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Compensatory evolution: a possible mechanism of population divergence

Posted on 1 Dec, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

After spending my graduate career using genetic data to reconstruct historical demographic events, one of the things that excite me the most about my postdoc work is the opportunity to use experimental methods to make evolution happen (insert mad scientist laugh … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, mutation, yeast | 3 Comments

Caught sweeping 'cross the sea

Posted on 28 Nov, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

  The salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis is an ectoparasite linked to declines in wild salmonid populations as well as causing huge economic losses in salmon farms. Previous studies, using a variety of molecular markers, yielded conflicting results ranging from strong … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, mutation, next generation sequencing | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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