Genetics, Mathematics, and Natural Selection

Wayward Modeling: Population Genetics and Natural Selection*

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measur...

Natural selection and the genetics of adaptation in threespine stickleback.

Growing knowledge of the molecular basis of adaptation in wild populations is expanding the study of natural selection. We summarize ongoing efforts to infer three aspects of natural selection--mechanism, form and history--from the genetics of adaptive evolution in threespine stickleback that colonized freshwater after the last ice age. We tested a mechanism of selection for reduced bony armour...

Phenylthiocarbamide: a 75-year adventure in genetics and natural selection.

VARIATION in taste sensitivity to the bitter compound phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is one of the best known Mendelian traits in human populations, ranking alongside eye color and blood types in the canon of classic examples. Much of PTC’s appeal arises from the fact that it is nearly impossible to guess one’s phenotype until explicitly tested, yet, when tested, the phenotype is so striking as to b...

Human Fertility, Molecular Genetics, and Natural Selection in Modern Societies

Research on genetic influences on human fertility outcomes such as number of children ever born (NEB) or the age at first childbirth (AFB) has been solely based on twin and family-designs that suffer from problematic assumptions and practical limitations. The current study exploits recent advances in the field of molecular genetics by applying the genomic-relationship-matrix based restricted ma...

Studying the Genetics of Behavior & Evolution by Adaptation & Natural Selection