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Category Archives: domestication
In defense of hatcheries: a response to the "Artifishal" documentary
A month or so ago, I had opportunity to screen the documentary, “Artifishal” (admittedly, a pretty clever title), in a room full of fish biologists, geneticists, and hatchery managers. The premise of the film is that both hatcheries and open … Continue reading
It's decorative gourd genetics season, muppet-huggers
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
Population genomics finds veritas in the demographic history of vino
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
Mapping genomes and navigating behavior for wildlife conservation
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
Posted in adaptation, association genetics, bioinformatics, blogging, conservation, domestication, evolution, natural history
Tagged behavior, conservation, QTLs, Reintroduction, scicomm, transcriptome, zoos
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Molting on the molecular level: how blue crabs become soft-shell crabs
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
Posted in bioinformatics, blogging, conservation, domestication, evolution, genomics, natural history
Tagged Aquaculture, Blue Crab, Endocrinology, Physiology, scicomm, Science Communication
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To the final estuaries
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
Posted in blogging, domestication, evolution, haploid-diploid
Tagged Field work, Gracilaria, Japan, Tokyo
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Genomics of domestication in chicken and cattle
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 domestication, ecological speciation, Evolution, hybridization, natural selection, population genetics, population structure
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Small mammalian genomics of adaptation
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
Posted in adaptation, domestication, evolution, genomics, natural history, pedigree, phylogenetics, population genetics, selection
Tagged Evolution, gene flow, genomics, natural selection
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