Category Archives: evolution

Dōmo arigatō

Posted on 3 Jul, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Along with my collaborators, Erik Sotka, Courtney Murren, Allan Strand and our battery of students, we have embarked on an intense summer field season. Erik and I are leading the effort of sampling populations of the introduced red seaweed Gracilaria … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, blogging, community, evolution, haploid-diploid, natural history | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Societal constructs, and Genetic diversity

Posted on 2 Jul, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

While we grapple with numerous discoveries of variation in genomic diversity in humans, interest has subsequently risen in understanding their causes/results. Two recent papers describe experiments to determine (a) the effects of marital rules (who gets to marry whom) on … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, genomics, natural history, population genetics, selection, societal structure | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Kennewick, and the Oase I

Posted on 25 Jun, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Last week was glorious for ancient DNA enthusiasts – here are some quick blurbs on findings from genomic analyses of the Kennewick man, and the Oase I individual. The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man, Rasmussen et al. (2015) Nature DOI: … Continue reading →

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The evolution of phylogeography in the next gen era: 20 years in review

Posted on 15 Jun, 2015 by Melissa DeBiasse

Phylogeographers have long known about the limitations of single locus studies (ie, the effects of selective sweeps, stochasticity in lineage sorting among loci) and that adding loci improves the accuracy of demographic parameter estimates. As we continue to shift towards collecting multi-locus datasets thanks to high throughput … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, genomics, Molecular Ecology, the journal, next generation sequencing, phylogeography, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Old dogs, and 'carnivorous' pandas

Posted on 4 Jun, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

It was a good fortnight for large mammals! Two recent studies attempt to date the emergence of modern canids, and offer insights into the gut microbiomes of giant pandas. Ancient Wolf Genome Reveals an Early Divergence of Domestic Dog Ancestors and … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, natural history, Paleogenomics, population genetics, speciation | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Sexual selection and population fitness

Posted on 28 May, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

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 , , , | 1 Comment

The diversity hiding in lizard blood

Posted on 27 May, 2015 by Rob Denton

  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 →

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The genomics of bee sociality

Posted on 27 May, 2015 by Noah Snyder-Mackler

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 →

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Genomic diversity and secondary contact

Posted on 21 May, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Under a divergence, or isolation model, the genomes of individuals in a daughter-population are expected to harbor greater differentiation relative to its sister-population, and lower differentiation within the population (after sufficient time since divergence). Divergence thus is a mechanism of … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, genomics, next generation sequencing, population genetics, theory | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Easy as ABC

Posted on 15 May, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

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 →

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