DNA sequence data contains a wealth of biologically useful information. Recent innovations in DNA sequencing technology have greatly increased our capacity to determine massive amounts of nucleotide sequences. These sequences can be used to specify the characteristics of different regions, interpret the evolutionary relationships between categorized groups, likelihood of performing multiple com...

Given that evolution can generate rapid and dramatic shifts in the ecological tolerance of a species, what prevents populations adapting to expand into new habitat at the edge of their distributions? Recent population genetic models have focused on the relative costs and benefits of migration between populations. On the one hand, migration may limit adaptive divergence by preventing local popul...

Copy-number-variable (CNV) loci differ from single nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) sites in size, mutation rate, and mechanisms of maintenance in natural populations. It is therefore hypothesized that population genetic divergence at CNV loci will differ from that found at SNP sites. Here, we test this hypothesis by analysing 856 CNV loci from the genomes of 1184 healthy individuals from 11 HapMap...

We use an experimental introduction in nature to examine factors that influence parallel evolution. In 1996, 200 high-predation guppies (Poecilia reticulata) from the Yarra River were introduced into the Damier River, which previously lacked guppies. Eight years later, we quantified the colour of wild-caught guppies ('phenotypic' divergence) and lab-reared guppies ('genetic' divergence) from lo...

Understanding the genetic mechanisms of speciation and basis of species differences is among the most important challenges in evolutionary biology. Two questions of particular interest are what roles divergent selection and chromosomal differentiation play in these processes. A number of recently proposed theories argue that chromosomal rearrangements can facilitate the development and maintena...

Genetic and morphological divergence and phylogenetic relationships of Scorpaeniformes fish including two genera and six species, Helicolenus dactylopterus, Scorpaena maderensis, Scorpaena porcus, Scorpaena elongata, Scorpaena scrofa, Scorpaena notata, living in the Mediterranean Sea, were investigated with morphological and mitochondrial 16S rDNA sequence data. The mean nucleotide diversity wa...

The impact of gene flow and population size fluctuations in shaping genetic variation during adaptive radiation, at both the genome-wide and gene-specific levels, is very poorly understood. To examine how historical population size and gene flow patterns within and between loci have influenced lineage divergence in the Hawaiian silversword alliance, we have investigated the nucleotide sequence ...

Ethological reproductive isolation and genetic divergence across 26 protein loci were measured among populations of the salamander Desmognathus ochrophaeus in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Levels of ethological isolation varied from none to complete and were statistically significant for all but two pairings between populations inhabiting different mountain ranges. When geographic and gen...

Identifying population structure is one of the most common and important objectives of spatial analyses using population genetic data. Population structure is detected either by rejecting the null hypothesis of a homogenous distribution of genetic variation, or by estimating low migration rates. Issues arise with most current population genetic inference methods when the genetic divergence is l...