Category Archives: evolution

Rooting eukaryotes in the Arctic Ocean

Posted on 14 May, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

While the general consensus has centered around the evolution of eukaryotes within the TACK superphylum of Archaea (Thaum-, Aigar-, Cren-, and Kor-archaeota), considerable controversy yet remains with (a) the rooting of the eukaryote common ancestor, and (b) ‘missing’ links in … Continue reading →

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When genomes duplicate

Posted on 8 May, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Whole genome duplication events have played an important role in the evolutionary history of plants. Vallejo-Marín et al. (2015) describe origins of a new polyploid species, Mimulus peregrines, found on the Scottish mainland as well as the Orkney Islands. It was formed within … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, natural history, plants | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Gene flow and Population Fitness

Posted on 7 May, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Fitness effects of gene flow (both advantageous and deleterious) have garnered plenty of recent press and scientific exploration. At the population level, the concepts and consequences are notoriously familiar. In the context of immigration, they reduce to existing genetic variation, … Continue reading →

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

Sous les mers: cradles or museums of biodiversity?

Posted on 2 May, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

While thinking about environmental genomics and writing this post on a recent article in Heredity, I interviewed Eric Pante.

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Grasping gorgonians

Posted on 1 May, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

A recent issue of Heredity focused on the brave new world of environmental genomics. After highlighting the special issue, I started chatting to one of the contributors, Eric Pante and became interested in his work on gorgonians. Eric and his co-authors explored the … Continue reading →

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Clonal conundrum, part deux

Posted on 24 Apr, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

In the second installment of the clonal conundrum, one hallmark of clonality is one that surprisingly hasn’t been validated that many times using species that have both sexually and asexually reproducing populations. Theoretically, clonal reproduction should generate massive … Heterozygote excess … Continue reading →

Posted in conservation, DNA barcoding, domestication, evolution, haploid-diploid, population genetics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Adaptive divergence in the monkey flower

Posted on 20 Apr, 2015 by Melissa DeBiasse

Theory suggests adaptive divergence can proceed in the face of gene flow when adaptive alleles occur in areas of the genome, such as chromosomal inversions, that are protected from recombination, which can break up beneficial allele pairings. In their recent Evolution paper, … Continue reading →

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Clonal conundrum, part un

Posted on 19 Apr, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Molecular ecologists are faced with a clonal conundrum when we wish to investigate the evolutionary ecology of clonal organisms. An attack of the clones is not something that should frighten one away …

Posted in Coevolution, community ecology, conservation, domestication, evolution, haploid-diploid, natural history, population genetics | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

The brave new world of environmental genomics

Posted on 17 Apr, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

A new special issue of Heredity reflects on the recent advances in environmental genomics (see other posts about eDNA here and here) and highlights the ways NGS can aid in characterizing complex biological systems. The cryptic, as well as the rare but active … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, Coevolution, DNA barcoding, evolution, genomics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

dN(eutralist) < dS(electionist) Part 5

Posted on 16 Apr, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

The neutral theory predicts that species with small census (and effective) population sizes are subject to greater drift (or allele frequency fluctuations), and vice versa. In other words, species with larger population sizes are expected to maintain more neutral diversity … Continue reading →

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