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Tag Archives: isolation by distance
For population genetics, continuous space might be the final frontier
My first exposure to this issue was probably reading Whitlock and McCauley’s 1999 review of the tricky relationship between pairwise genetic differentiation and actual migration rates. Classic theory by none other than Sewall Wright related the differentiation index FST to … Continue reading
Clinal genomic variation in Drosophila species
Two recent manuscripts describe adaptive evolutions to clinal/latitudinal variations in Drosophila species to supplement a growing wealth of recent studies on geographic variation and adaptive evolution in natural populations of fruitflies (eg. see Kao et al. 2015, Zhao et al. … Continue reading
What's the most replicated finding in population genetics?
DrugMonkey tells a tale of a specific finding in addiction research — that rats provided with an intravenous drip of cocaine solution will push a lever to self-administer the drug — which has been replicated countless times over the decades. … Continue reading
Adapting to the new wave of isolation by environment
Isolation by environment, not distance, explains the genetic relationship between an avian taxon among Madrean Sky Islands, according to a new study appearing in Molecular Ecology by Manthey and Moyle. The authors throw the kitchen sink of new analyses at a combination … Continue reading
SpaceMix, and a brief history of Spatial Genetics
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 data visualization, isolation by distance, methods, population structure
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Isolation by environment explains why the grass isn't always greener
Ever since Sewall Wright introduced isolation by distance in 1943, the interplay between genetic differentiation and geographic distance has been a foundational, sometimes frustrating, aspect of population genetics studies. But distance isn’t just distance. The walk to my car isn’t any longer when … Continue reading
Genes … in … space!
It’s something of a classic result in human population genomics: Go out and genotype thousands of people at thousands of genetic markers. (This is getting easier to do every day.) Then summarize the genetic variation at your thousands of markers … Continue reading
Isolating isolation by distance
Update, 29 Jan 2015: This post has been edited to remove a video clip from the movie “Chinatown,” which was jarring and really just unnecessary, as pointed out in the comments. At its most basic level, population genetics is about … Continue reading
Posted in methods, population genetics
Tagged AMOVA, isolation by distance, null model, outlier test, population structure
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