Related papers: Natural selection reduced diversity on human Y chr…
Standard neutral population genetics theory with a strictly fixed population size has important limitations. An alternative model that allows independently fluctuating population sizes and reproduces the standard neutral evolution is…
A major aim of evolutionary biology is to explain the respective roles of adaptive versus non-adaptive changes in the evolution of complexity. While selection is certainly responsible for the spread and maintenance of complex phenotypes,…
Our theoretical understanding of crossover is limited by our ability to analyze how population diversity evolves. In this study, we provide one of the first rigorous analyses of population diversity and optimization time in a setting where…
The neutral mutation rate is known to vary widely along human chromosomes, leading to mutational hot and cold regions. We provide evidence that categories of functionally-related genes reside preferentially in mutationally hot or cold…
In this paper we investigate why the running time of lexicase parent selection is empirically much lower than its worst-case bound of O(N*C). We define a measure of population diversity and prove that high diversity leads to low running…
One of the most challenging issues of evolutionary biology concerns speciation, the emergence of new species from an initial one. The huge amount of species found in nature demands a simple and robust mechanism. Yet, no consensus has been…
In evolutionary algorithms, the fitness of a population increases with time by mutating and recombining individuals and by a biased selection of more fit individuals. The right selection pressure is critical in ensuring sufficient…
We define a general class of models representing natural selection between two alleles. The population size and spatial structure are arbitrary, but fixed. Genetics can be haploid, diploid, or otherwise; reproduction can be asexual or…
In order to analyze data from cancer genome sequencing projects, we need to be able to distinguish causative, or "driver," mutations from "passenger" mutations that have no selective effect. Toward this end, we prove results concerning the…
Drosophila Y chromosomes are composed entirely of silent heterochromatin, while male X chromosomes have highly accessible chromatin and are hypertranscribed due to dosage compensation. Here, we dissect the molecular mechanisms and…
We updated the agent based Monte Carlo code HERITAGE that simulates human evolution within restrictive environments such as interstellar, sub-light speed spacecraft in order to include the effects of population genetics. We incorporated a…
We consider neutral evolution of a large population subject to changes in its population size. For a population with a time-variable carrying capacity we have computed the distributions of the total branch lengths of its sample genealogies.…
We study the genetic behaviour of a population formed by haploid individuals which reproduce asexually. The genetic information for each individual is stored along a bit-string (or chromosome) with L bits, where 0-bits represent the…
Conventional population genetics considers the evolution of a limited number of genotypes corresponding to phenotypes with different fitness. As model phenotypes, in particular RNA secondary structure, have become computationally tractable,…
We investigate a densely packed, non-random arrangement of forty-six chromosomes (46,XY) in human nuclei. Here, we model systems-level chromosomal crosstalk by unifying intrinsic parameters (chromosomal length and number of genes) across…
We have used the Monte Carlo based computer models to show that selection pressure could affect the distribution of recombination hotspots along the chromosome. Close to critical crossover rate, where genomes may switch between the…
BACKGROUND: Many of the mutations accumulated by naturally evolving proteins are neutral in the sense that they do not significantly alter a protein's ability to perform its primary biological function. However, new protein functions evolve…
The Trojan Y Chromosome (TYC) Strategy is a promising eradication method that attempts to manipulate the female to male ratio to promote the reduction of the population of an invasive species. The manipulation stems from an introduction of…
Recent microbial experiments suggest that enhanced genetic drift at the frontier of a two-dimensional range expansion can cause genetic sectoring patterns with fractal domain boundaries. Here, we propose and analyze a simple model of…
We investigate through numerical simulations the effect of selection on two summary statistics for nucleotide variation in a sample of two genes from a population of N asexually reproducing haploid individuals. One is the mean time since…