Category Archives: evolution

Sweptaway – Part 3 – Adaptation genomics of White Sands Lizards

Posted on 24 Sep, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Recent colonization events offer juicy insights into the adaptive evolution of species in response to natural selection of novel habitats – however, they are confounded by demographic changes (eg. bottlenecks, differential migration). In a recent study, Laurent et al. (2015) … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Coevolution, evolution, genomics, natural history, population genetics, selection | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sweptaway – Part 2

Posted on 17 Sep, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Numerous methods have been developed over the last few years for the detection of selective sweeps (hard and soft – see my previous post). This week, we look at three new studies that (a) compare existing methods to detect sweeps … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, methods, population genetics, selection, software, theory | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Goldilocks zone of missing data

Posted on 16 Sep, 2015 by Rob Denton

Reduced representation sequencing approaches, such as RADseq and UCEs, have provided some fascinating inferences in recent years, but something has always been missing in these analyses: data. As sampled taxa become more divergent, the price paid for more loci is … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, methods, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Small mammalian genomics of adaptation

Posted on 10 Sep, 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 →

Posted in adaptation, domestication, evolution, genomics, natural history, pedigree, phylogenetics, population genetics, selection | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Sweptaway – Part 1

Posted on 3 Sep, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Brace yourselves for a series of new posts on selection, especially with articles from the special Molecular Ecology issue on “Detecting selection in natural populations: making sense of genome scans and towards alternative solutions” starting to roll out! Selective sweeps … Continue reading →

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And who made your beer?

Posted on 27 Aug, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

In the spirit of it being almost Friday, and while we’re on the topic of your favorite beverages – perhaps wine puts you to sleep, couldn’t care less where it came from, but prefer the bitterness of lager beers at your … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, population genetics, selection, speciation, yeast | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Where's your wine from?

Posted on 20 Aug, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Human-mediated selection of yeast cultures has played a huge role in the development of numerous unique strains of Sacchromyces cerevisiae, often attributed to production of a wide variety of wines the world over. Previous studies have indicated a single domesticated … Continue reading →

Posted in domestication, evolution, genomics, horizontal gene transfer, microbiology, Molecular Ecology, the journal, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, STRUCTURE, yeast | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Selection scans, and the genomics of adaptive/maladaptive introgression

Posted on 6 Aug, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Natural selection, and the adaptive evolution of hybrid reproductive incompatibilities post divergence are known to be major drivers of speciation. At the phenotype level, these manifest as fitness differences between introgressing populations. At the genomic level, speciation “genes” or “islands” … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Coevolution, evolution, genomics, Molecular Ecology, the journal, mutation, natural history, population genetics, selection, speciation, theory | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Butterfly Effect

Posted on 9 Jul, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

This might just take the prize for the ‘spiciest’ story in molecular co-evolution for 2015, yet. While a lot of the press coverage sounds like caterpillar thanksgiving, the science behind this study stands for the almost incredible power of molecular phylogenetics … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, natural history, population genetics, selection, speciation, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

marmap

Posted on 3 Jul, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

A couple years ago, Benoit Simon-Bouhet ended up sharing an office with Eric Pante, then a post-doc fellow in his former lab. The two quickly realized they were in a lab in which few people had the expertise or taste for coding. Thus, on … Continue reading →

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