Tag Archives: ecological speciation

Old dogs, and 'carnivorous' pandas

It was a good fortnight for large mammals! Two recent studies attempt to date the emergence of modern canids, and offer insights into the gut microbiomes of giant pandas. Ancient Wolf Genome Reveals an Early Divergence of Domestic Dog Ancestors and … Continue reading

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Sexual selection and population fitness

Sexual selection or non-random mate choice acts to ‘filter’ out less competitive/desirable phenotypes from a population. In the presence of small effect mutation loads, i.e. small fitness differences between a mutation-free population, and one with persistent deleterious mutations, sexual selection … Continue reading

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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

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

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

Speciation with gene flow and the virtual beanbag: Genome-level effects increase divergence during ecological speciation, but linkage is not required

This post is a guest contribution by Dylan Goldade, Kathryn Theiss, and Chris Smith, from the Biology Department at Willamette University. See below for the coauthors’ afflilations and research interests. In a famous address given on the hundredth anniversary of the … Continue reading

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