In finite populations, mutation limitation and genetic drift can hinder evolutionary diversification. We consider the evolution of a quantitative trait in an asexual population whose size can vary and depends explicitly on the trait. Previous work showed that evolutionary branching is certain ("deterministic branching") above a threshold population size, but uncertain ("stochastic branching") b...

We study the longtime behaviour of interacting systems in a randomly uctuating (space{ time) medium and focus on models from population genetics. There are two prototypes of spatial models in population genetics: spatial branching processes and interacting Fisher{Wright diiusions. Quite a bit is known on spatial branching processes where the local branching rate is proportional to a random envi...

Despite the apparent advantages of adaptive plasticity, it is not common. We examined the effects of variation and uncertainty on selection for plasticity using an individual-based computer simulation model. In the model, the environment consisted of a linear gradient of 50 demes with dispersal occurring either before or after selection. Individuals consisted of multiple loci whose phenotypic e...

Characterizing the role of effective population size in dictating the rate of adaptive evolution remains a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Depending on the underlying distribution of fitness effects of new mutations, populations of different sizes may differ vastly in their rate of adaptation. Here, we collect polymorphism data at over 100 loci for two closely related Drosophila specie...

Although there have many studies of the population genetical consequences of environmental variation, little is known about the combined effects of genetic drift and fluctuating selection in structured populations. Here we use diffusion theory to investigate the effects of temporally and spatially varying selection on a population of haploid individuals subdivided into a large number of demes. ...

We examine acoustic mating preferences of a focal population at four different scales of divergence: within the population, between populations in the same genetic group, between populations in different genetic groups and between different species. At all scales there is substantial genetic divergence, variation in mating signals and preferences are influenced by signal variation. There is, ho...

When individuals of two species interact, they can adjust their phenotypes in response to their respective partner, be they antagonists or mutualists. The reciprocal phenotypic change between individuals of interacting species can reflect an evolutionary response to spatial and temporal variation in species interactions and ecologically result in the structuring of food chains. The evolution of...

The generality of operational species definitions is limited by problematic definitions of between-species divergence. A recent phylogenetic species concept based on a simple objective measure of statistically significant genetic differentiation uses between-species application of statistical parsimony networks that are typically used for population genetic analysis within species. Here we revi...

We present a theoretical proof that the ratio of the dominance vs. the additive variance decreases with increasing genetic divergence between two populations. While the dominance variance is the major component of the variance due to specific combining ability (sigma(SCA)(2)), the additive variance is the major component of the variance due to general combining ability (sigma(GCA)(2)). Therefor...

I’ve mentioned many times by now that population geneticists often look at the world backwards. Sometimes when they do, the result is very useful. Consider genetic drift, for example. So far we’ve been trying to predict what will happen in a population given a particular effective population size. But when we collect data we are often more interested in understanding the processes that produced...