The effective size of a population, N e, determines the rate of change in the composition of a
population caused by genetic drift, which is the random sampling of genetic variants in a …

Populations adapt to novel environments in two distinct ways: selection on pre-existing
genetic variation and selection on new mutations. These alternative sources of beneficial …

Recombination is a fundamental biological process with profound evolutionary implications.
Theory predicts that recombination increases the effectiveness of selection in natural …

Population genetics theory supplies powerful predictions about how natural selection
interacts with genetic linkage to sculpt the genomic landscape of nucleotide polymorphism …

Although much progress has been made in identifying the genes (and, in rare cases,
mutations) that contribute to phenotypic variation, less is known about the effects that these …

Adaptation from standing genetic variation or recurrent de novo mutation in large
populations should commonly generate soft rather than hard selective sweeps. In contrast to …

Neutral theory predicts that genetic diversity increases with population size, yet observed
levels of diversity across metazoans vary only two orders of magnitude while population …

Drosophila melanogaster has played a pivotal role in the development of modern population
genetics. However, many basic questions regarding the demographic and adaptive history …

Livestock populations have been consistently improving in terms of performance and
productivity by selective breeding over the centuries. These selection strategies are …

Although many studies provide examples of evolutionary processes such as adaptive
evolution, balancing selection, deleterious variation and genetic drift, the relative importance …