Category Archives: population genetics

The forest resounding at rare intervals with the note of … reproductive isolation

Posted on 14 Nov, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Hybrid zones are often used as a window with which to gaze upon the evolutionary process (Barton and Hewitt 1989). With the advent of genomic tools, it is possible to detect the genomic signatures and the architecture underlying reproductive isolation. In … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, conservation, genomics, next generation sequencing, population genetics, speciation | 1 Comment

Admixture maps in R for Dummies

Posted on 13 Nov, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

Before we get started, I’d like to point everyone to an excellent tutorial here by Kim Gilbert on making maps in R. I have been grappling with overlaying admixture plots, and migration routes on top of maps recently, and thought I’d put … Continue reading →

Posted in howto, population genetics, R, software, STRUCTURE | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Is genetics a requirement for restoration?

Posted on 12 Nov, 2014 by Rob Denton

The fields of conservation and genetics have relied heavily on one another for quite a while now (they even made an aptly named journal together!). Using genetic information is now an accepted, and even expected, step in recognizing and protecting … Continue reading →

Posted in community ecology, conservation, Molecular Ecology, the journal, natural history, population genetics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Different genetic paths lead to the same phenotypic destination

Posted on 10 Nov, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

Male field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) on the Hawaiian archipelago sing to attract mates using acoustic structures on their wings. While singing makes the ladies swoon, it also gives away the male cricket’s location, making it vulnerable to fatal attacks by … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, population genetics | 1 Comment

Happy as a clam, despite genetic uniformity

Posted on 7 Nov, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

  Introduced populations of non-native species are often associated with low genetic diversity, as measured by neutral genetic loci, and, thus, considered a paradox (but see Roman and Darling 2007). The study by Lise-Marie Pigneur and colleagues documents an extreme example … Continue reading →

Posted in natural history, population genetics | Leave a comment

The Ust'-Ishim Genome

Posted on 6 Nov, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

This year has been monumental in pulling together several interesting pieces in the human evolution out of Africa puzzle (Lazaridis et al., Ruiz-Linares et al., Skoglund et al., Huerta-Sanchez et al., Jeong et al., Pickrell et al., Raghavan et al., … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, mutation, Paleogenomics, population genetics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

How many markers does it take to make a dataset "genomic"?

Posted on 9 Oct, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

A new paper in Ecology Letters by Matthew Fitzpatrick and Stephen Keller proposes to use some a class of statistical methods developed for understanding the distribution of species in different environments to understand the distribution of genetic variants in different … Continue reading →

Posted in association genetics, genomics, next generation sequencing, population genetics, software | 7 Comments

You can evolve there from here. And from here. And here …

Posted on 19 Aug, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

If evolutionary history somehow reverted back to the “warm little pond” in which life began, and started over from almost-scratch, would the re-diversification of life end up, four billion years later, pretty much as we see it today? I think … Continue reading →

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

How many genes does it take to make a new species?

Posted on 5 Aug, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

Three-spined sticklebacks are speciation machines. When retreating glaciers exposed lakes and rivers around the coasts of northern North America and Eurasia, these armor-plated little fish colonized the new freshwater habitats from the ocean, and adapted to the threats and resources … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, population genetics, quantitative genetics, speciation | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Bayesian Markov-chain Monte Carlo in population genetics

Posted on 1 Jul, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

This is a guest post by Arun Sethuraman, a postdoctoral associate with Jody Hey, studying statistical models for divergence population genetics in the Department of Biology at Temple University. You can also find him on Twitter, and on his short story blog. Prompted by the great response … Continue reading →

Posted in methods, population genetics, software | Tagged , | 3 Comments