Category Archives: domestication

It’s decorative gourd genetics season, muppet-huggers

Posted on 8 November, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

It’s the first week of November, and we’re at Peak Pumpkin. Jack o’lanterns are passé, but Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and traditional winter-solstice-adjacent holidays will keep pumpkin pie and its infamous espresso-based brethren in style for almost two more months. … Continue reading →

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Population genomics finds veritas in the demographic history of vino

Posted on 17 October, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

One of the more, hah, fruitful applications of genomic data has been in crop and livestock improvement. Biologists know that domesticating plants and animals for human use has involved powerful artificial selection — usually inadvertent at first, then intensive and … Continue reading →

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Non-model organisms are so hot right now

Posted on 4 August, 2017 by Kelle Freel

What makes a model organism? Well, as the name suggests, they are widely studied and have been adapted to a vast array of common genetic techniques. A few of the most often utilized organisms, which you are most likely already … Continue reading →

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Mapping genomes and navigating behavior for wildlife conservation

Posted on 11 April, 2017 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Virginia Aida wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently evaluating a potential pharmacotherapy in traumatic brain injury and anticipates graduating with her MS in summer 2017.  Although she … Continue reading →

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Molting on the molecular level: how blue crabs become soft-shell crabs

Posted on 21 March, 2017 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Megan Roegner wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Megan spent her early years in Cape Town, South Africa playing in the tidal pools along the coast and developing … Continue reading →

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The not so singular process of hybridization

Posted on 27 May, 2016 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

What, if anything, are hybrids? Zach Gompert and Alex Buerkle ask this question in a special issue in Evolutionary Applications. Hybrids occur when unrelated individuals mate, but how distant do the taxa need to be to constitute a cross? The varied … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, conservation, domestication, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, plants | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

To the final estuaries

Posted on 30 October, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

For the final stop on our Japanese sampling leg, we ventured to the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Tokyo was known as Edo (江戸), or estuary, until it became the imperial capital in 1868. An apt location to end our field expedition … Continue reading →

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Genomics of domestication in chicken and cattle

Posted on 29 October, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Two recent studies attempt to understand the process of adaptive evolution in domestication and artificial selection by characterizing (a) sweeps, and their association with phenotypes in extant hybrid lines (Sheng et al. 2015), and (b) phylogenomic position of an extinct … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, domestication, evolution, genomics, natural history, Paleogenomics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection, speciation, STRUCTURE | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Small mammalian genomics of adaptation

Posted on 10 September, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

While large mammals have had their day on our blog, two recent studies on small mammals reveal the genetics of size evolution in island mice, and differential introgression of mitochondrial and nuclear genomes in chipmunks – steps towards understanding the … Continue reading →

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The unforeseen genomic consequences of domestication

Posted on 26 August, 2015 by Rob Denton

When a desired genome is selected for propagation, all mutations, beneficial, neutral, or deleterious, shift in frequency, and this sometimes can have unforeseen consequences. Natural selection takes the good with the bad. Beneficial and harmful mutations combine to provide a net … Continue reading →

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