Category Archives: natural history

Annotations on a tweet-storm directed more-or-less towards Neil deGrasse Tyson

Posted on 14 Mar, 2016 by Jeremy Yoder

So, Saturday afternoon, while I really should have been working on other things, this happened: Hi, @neiltyson, I am an actual evolutionary geneticist who probably did inherit such a gene, thanks. https://t.co/B9ATLu357L — Jeremy Yoder (@JBYoder) March 12, 2016 What … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, natural history, population genetics, selection | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Neanderthal admixture plot thickens…

Posted on 25 Feb, 2016 by Arun Sethuraman

Previous studies of archaic admixture from Altai Neanderthals and Denisovans into modern humans outside of Africa have put forth several lines of evidence for gene flow from Neanderthals into common ancestors of Eurasian populations, from Denisovans into ancestors of modern … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, mutation, natural history, next generation sequencing, Paleogenomics, population genetics, speciation | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Carnivorous Rodents of Southeast Asia

Posted on 15 Feb, 2016 by Bryan McLean

Whoa, Wallace. There be carnivorous rats on those islands. Sixty-two species, to be exact, across the broader Indo-Australian Archipelago. Among them are small- and large-bodied rats, worm-eaters with elongated snouts (“vermivores”), and even amphibious forms (Fig. 1), and they are … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, natural history, phylogenetics, theory | Leave a comment

Supergenes and Sparrows with Four Sexes

Posted on 10 Feb, 2016 by Ethan Linck

Supergenes are groups of tightly-linked genes that influence suites of traits relevant to fitness. While long a fixture of evolutionary genetics theory, their role in empirical studies of non-model organisms has been relatively limited, due to limitations in both our … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, horizontal gene transfer, natural history, population genetics, selection | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Single dispersal of modern humans to Eurasia

Posted on 8 Feb, 2016 by Patrícia Chrzanová Pečnerová

In a typical ancient DNA study where the number of authors exceeds the number of specimens (actually, equals this time), Cosimo Posth and colleagues sequenced 35 pre-Neolithic modern humans from Europe. By sequencing 35 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genomes, Posth et … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, genomics, natural history, Paleogenomics, population genetics | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Genomics of Hybridization – Part II, Top three of 2015

Posted on 28 Jan, 2016 by Arun Sethuraman

Death Valley pupfishes (Cyprinodon) are among the most endangered vertebrates on earth, with small inbred populations, with heavy risks of extinction in extreme environments. Martin et al. (2016) in a recent publication quantify diversity and adaptability in a very small population … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, conservation, genomics, methods, natural history, next generation sequencing, population genetics, R, software, speciation, STRUCTURE, theory | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Genomics of Hybridization – Part 1

Posted on 21 Jan, 2016 by Arun Sethuraman

In a series of articles, I will discuss recent advances in hybridization genomics – the fundamentals of adaptive introgression, “islands of speciation”, differential gene flow, and linked selection have been discussed in my previous posts (here, here, and also at … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, methods, natural history, next generation sequencing, pedigree, phylogenetics, plants, population genetics, RNAseq, software, speciation, species delimitation, STRUCTURE, theory, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Earthquakes and rapid evolution

Posted on 7 Jan, 2016 by Arun Sethuraman

The 1964 Alaskan earthquake was landscape-altering in creating/uplifting numerous islands in the Gulf of Alaska, providing an ideal system to study adaptive evolution of diversification in affected species – the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) being a widely studied example. In … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogeography, population genetics, selection, STRUCTURE | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lonesome George, no longer?

Posted on 18 Dec, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Galapagos tortoises summon up images of great, lumbering beasts on idyllic islands that planted the seeds of natural selection in the young naturalist, Charles Darwin. In a recent paper, Poulakakis et al. (2015) provide genetic evidence of two lineages of tortoises … Continue reading →

Posted in conservation, DNA barcoding, natural history, pedigree, population genetics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Gracilaria , currywurst and aebleskivers

Posted on 14 Dec, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Another travelogue for a Monday afternoon! Our first official European stop on the Gracilaria vermiculophylla tour was in Germany and Denmark hosted by a colleague without whom we wouldn’t have been able to embark on this adventure! I first met Florian Weinberger … Continue reading →

Posted in blogging, conservation, evolution, haploid-diploid, natural history, population genetics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment