Population Genomics
Speciation and adaptive divergence often include periods of gene flow. Whether this gene flow occurs prior, during, or after the evolution of reproductive isolation, and what consequences gene flow has on the architecture of traits under divergent selection are fundamental questions that remain largely unanswered.
While we now have unprecedented amounts of genome scale data, there is a lack of statistical approaches to make robust inference from these data. To fill this gap, we combine mathematical modelling and population genetic theory to devise statistical procedures for the joint inference of demography and selection. Applying these approaches to genome-wide sequence and recombination data, we ask how selection modifies gene flow in speciation, what genes act as barriers to gene flow, and how deleterious mutations accumulate in populations as a function of demographic history. We currently use Mimulus and wild tomatoes (Solanum section Lycopersicon) as our main study systems.
Dr. Simon Aeschbacher
University of Zurich
Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies
8057 Zurich
Tel: +41 (0)44 635 49 72