Category Archives: population genetics

Genome-wide effects of artificial selection

Posted on 12 Feb, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Humans have been artificially selecting for favorable traits in crops, pets, and livestock over millennia. Years of theoretical predictions and experimental evolution studies have shown the detrimental effects of increased homozygosity, and the population-wide advantages of artificially maintaining heterozygosity. Two … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, methods, mutation, population genetics, theory | Leave a comment

How do you unite the stage and actors of the evolutionary play?

Posted on 11 Feb, 2015 by Rob Denton

When you are forced to give your one sentence, off-the-cuff response to “what kind of scientist are you?”, who do you become? A landscape geneticist? Community geneticist? Landscape epidemiologist? A new opinion in Trends in Ecology and Evolution by Brian … Continue reading →

Posted in community ecology, evolution, genomics, population genetics | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Phonemes and Genomes

Posted on 5 Feb, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Human phonemes and genomes are thought to have evolved hand-in-glove out of Africa. Several recent studies have attempted to capture a picture of this global variation in languages and peoples, often supporting (and rejecting) a serial founder model (eg. see … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, phylogenetics, population genetics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Night at the museum

Posted on 5 Feb, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Many population genetic and genomic studies document snapshots of a given population’s genetic diversity. Yet, there are many reasons to document changes over time in population parameters in response to perturbations, such as biological invasions (both in terms of the invader … Continue reading →

Posted in DNA barcoding, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, population genetics, speciation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Discordance in ancestry inference using human mtDNA and autosomes

Posted on 29 Jan, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Mitochondrial haplotypes have been used extensively over the last few decades for inference of a population structure in humans. Key findings from these studies include what has come to be known as the “Mitochondrial Eve” hypothesis (see the controversial Cann, … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, population genetics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SpaceMix, and a brief history of Spatial Genetics

Posted on 15 Jan, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Incorporating spatial data to inform studies of the population demography of a species has a long history of interest. From inferring geographical clines in Principal Components Analyses (Menozzi et al. 1978), using location data as “informative priors” during model-based estimation … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, howto, population genetics, R, software | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A population genetic R-evolution

Posted on 14 Jan, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Uphill, both ways, in the snow, without shoes … quite apt when thinking of the dark days, in the not too distant past, in which a separate input file was needed for each popgen analysis in order to use a … Continue reading →

Posted in howto, methods, population genetics, R, software, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Species and sensibility

Posted on 9 Jan, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Pante et al. (2014) performed a literature review of marine population connectivity in order to illustrate the biased estimates of connectivity which can result from the failure to recognize an evolutionary-relevant unit, such as a species. When exploring the connectivity … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, community ecology, conservation, DNA barcoding, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, population genetics, speciation, theory | 6 Comments

Recent Ancestry of the USA and the 100k Genome Project

Posted on 8 Jan, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Holiday presents for pop-gen enthusiasts come in the form of data – boatloads of it! The past two weeks saw the announcements of two neat studies that spell monumental steps toward our understanding of the genetics of mixed populations. With … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, population genetics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Totally RAD, Part 2

Posted on 7 Jan, 2015 by Rob Denton

Edit (8/20/15): I used the wrong web address for Kimberly Andrews! Go check out her work here. Sorry Kim! Restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RADseq) is quickly becoming the go-to methodology for collecting population genetic data, and the methodological difficulties of … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, Molecular Ecology views, next generation sequencing, population genetics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment