Genetic diversity and population structure

Population genetics examines how genetic variation is distributed within and among groups of organisms, and what forces — mutation, drift, migration, and selection — have shaped that distribution over time. Understanding the genetic structure of populations matters for questions ranging from the conservation of threatened species to tracking how infectious diseases spread and evolve. Researchers draw on tools such as microsatellite markers and Bayesian statistical methods to reconstruct demographic histories, delimit species boundaries, and identify signatures of adaptive evolution embedded in genomic data. Active challenges include disentangling the effects of natural selection from those of random demographic processes, and scaling these analyses reliably as sequencing data grow far larger and more complex.

Works

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Keywords

Population GeneticsGenetic StructurePopulation DynamicsMicrosatellite AnalysisBayesian InferenceGenetic Diversity