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Category Archives: theory
On getting empirical with the obvious
I’ve been thinking lately about the value in doing “simple” things. As a PhD student, my time is constantly incentivised by productivity (what am I doing right now that is working towards a publication?). But that doesn’t jive well with … Continue reading
Posted in population genetics, theory, Uncategorized
Tagged Daphnia, drift, population size
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On false positives in Isolation with Migration analyses
The IM suite of tools (IM, IMa, IMa2, IMa2p, etc.) are used widely by molecular ecologists at large for the analyses and estimation of ancestral demography under an Isolation with Migration (IM) model. However, these tools come with fundamental assumptions … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, genomics, howto, IMa2, methods, Molecular Ecology views, natural history, population genetics, software, theory
Tagged Evolution, gene flow, genomics, IM, isolation with migration, methods, migration, population genetics
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On background selection in Ficedula flycatchers
Several recent studies (including those I wrote about last week) use genome-wide scans of differentiation to understand evolutionary mechanisms behind high or low divergence. However, there has been contentious support for and against these differentiation islands being due to differential … Continue reading
Sweptaway – Part 2
Numerous methods have been developed over the last few years for the detection of selective sweeps (hard and soft – see my previous post). This week, we look at three new studies that (a) compare existing methods to detect sweeps … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, methods, population genetics, selection, software, theory
Tagged genomics, methods, natural selection, population structure
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Sweptaway – Part 1
Brace yourselves for a series of new posts on selection, especially with articles from the special Molecular Ecology issue on “Detecting selection in natural populations: making sense of genome scans and towards alternative solutions” starting to roll out! Selective sweeps … Continue reading
Selection scans, and the genomics of adaptive/maladaptive introgression
Natural selection, and the adaptive evolution of hybrid reproductive incompatibilities post divergence are known to be major drivers of speciation. At the phenotype level, these manifest as fitness differences between introgressing populations. At the genomic level, speciation “genes” or “islands” … Continue reading
IMa2p – Parallel Isolation with Migration Analyses
I figured that it was time to write an update on my post from a year ago on Bayesian MCMC in inferring ancestral demography. Recently, my postdoctoral advisor, Jody Hey and I released a version of the popular IMa2 program, … Continue reading
Posted in bioinformatics, genomics, howto, software, theory
Tagged Evolution, genomics, isolation, isolation with migration, migration, population genetics
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Gene flow and Population Fitness
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