Course Description: This course is designed to provide students with a general introduction to population genetics, which examines the interaction of basic evolutionary processes (including mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, inbreeding, recombination, and gene flow) in determining the genetic composition and evolutionary trajectories of natural populations. An understanding of the mechanisms shaping genetic variation within and between populations is critical to understanding the course of adaptive evolution and is increasingly being recognized as a critical component of medical research and the development of effective treatments for disease. Both the classic models and insights of the modern evolutionary synthesis and more recently developed approaches based on coalescent theory are considered.
Syllabus
Powerpoint Presentations
Excel Files
Discussion Readings
21-22 January - Genetic Variation
Kreitman M (1983) Nucleotide polymorphism at the alcohol-dehydrogenase locus of Drosophilamelanogaster. Nature 304, 412-417.
Perry GH, Dominy NJ, Claw KG, et al. (2007) Diet and the evolution of human amylase gene copy number variation. Nature Genetics 39, 1256-1260. {incl. Novembre J, Pritchard JK, Coop G (2007) Adaptive drool in the gene pool. Nature Genetics 39, 1188-1190.}
28-29 January - HWE
Morin PA, Moore JJ, Chakraborty R, et al. (1994)
Kin selection, social structure, gene flow, and the evolution of chimpanzees. Science 265, 1193-1201.
4-5 February - Linkage & Recombination
Conrad DF, Jakobsson M, Coop G, et al. (2006)
A worldwide survey of haplotype variation and linkage disequilibrium in the human genome
. Nature Genetics 38, 1251-1260.
Backstrom N, Ovarnstrom A, Gustafsson L, Ellegren H (2006) Levels of linkage disequilibrium in a wild bird population. Biology Letters 2, 435-438.
11-12 February - Problem Solving
Problems - Chapter 1-3
18-19 February - Coalescent Theory
Rosenberg NA, Nordborg M (2002) Genealogical trees, coalescent theory and the analysis of genetic polymorphisms. Nature Reviews Genetics 3, 380-390.
Shapiro B, Drummond AJ, Rambaut A, et al. (2004) Rise and fall of the Beringian steppe bison. Science 306, 1561-1565.
4-5 March - Comparison to Neutral Expectations
Akey JM, Eberle MA, Rieder MJ, et al. (2004) Population history and natural selection shape patterns of genetic variation in 132 genes. PLoS Biology 2, 1591-1599.
18-19 March - Natural Selection
Oliver MK, Telfer S, Piertney SB (2009) Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) heterozygote superiority to natural multi-parasite infections in the water vole (Arvicola terrestris). Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 276, 1119-1128.
Orsini L, Wheat CW, Haag CR, et al. (2009) Fitness differences associated with Pgi SNP genotypes in the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia). Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22, 367-375.
25-26 March - Meiotic Drive
Fishman L, Saunders A (2008) Centromere-associated female meiotic drive entails male fitness costs in monkeyflowers. Science 322, 1559-1562.
Phadnis N, Orr HA (2009) A single gene causes both male sterility and segregation distortion in Drosophila hybrids. Science 323, 376-379.
Price TAR, Hodgson DJ, Lewis Z, Hurst GDD, Wedell N (2008) Selfish genetic elements promote polyandry in a fly. Science 322, 1241-1243.
1-2 April – Inbreeding
Fredrickson RJ, Siminski P, Woolf M, Hedrick PW (2007) Genetic rescue and inbreeding depression in Mexican wolves. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 274, 2365-2371.
Meagher S, Penn DJ, Potts WK (2000) Male-male competition magnifies inbreeding depression in wild house mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97, 3324-3329.
8-9 April - Problem Solving
Problems - Chapter 4-6
15-16 April - Exam Review
22-23 April - Nearly Neutral Evolution
Hughes AL (2007) Looking for Darwin in all the wrong places: the misguided quest for positive selection at the nucleotide sequence level. Heredity 99, 364-373.
Popadin K, Polishchuk LV, Mamirova L, Knorre D, Gunbin K (2007)
Accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations in mitochondrial protein-coding genes of large versus small mammals
. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104, 13390-13395.
Rand DM (2008)
Mitigating mutational meltdown in mammalian mitochondria
. PLoS Biology 6, 229-232.
29-30 April - Detecting Selection from Molecular Data
Berglund J, Pollard KS, Webster MT (2009) Hotspots of biased nucleotide substitutions in human genes. PLoS Biology 7, e26.
Tieleman BI, Versteegh MA, Fries A, et al. (2009) Genetic modulation of energy metabolism in birds through mitochondrial function. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 276, 1685-1693.
LINKS
GenBank
Web
of Science
Journals
Software
