Related papers: Population genomics of transitions to selfing in B…
When predicting the fate and consequences of recurring deleterious mutations in self-fertilising populations most models developed make the assumption that populations have discrete non-overlapping generations. This makes them biologically…
We present a Bayesian method for characterizing the mating system of populations reproducing through a mixture of self-fertilization and random outcrossing. Our method uses patterns of genetic variation across the genome as a basis for…
The shift from outcrossing to self-fertilization is among the most common transitions in plants. Until recently, however, a genome-wide view of this transition has been obscured by a dearth of appropriate data and the lack of appropriate…
Biological aging is characterized by an age-dependent increase in the probability of death and by a decrease in the reproductive capacity. Individual age-dependent rates of survival and reproduction have a strong impact on population…
How self-incompatibility systems are maintained in plant populations is still a debated issue. Theoretical models predict that self-incompatibility systems break down according to the intensity of inbreeding depression and number of…
Commonly recognized evolutionarily relevant effects of sexual reproduction include increased diversity, accelerated adaptation, and constrained accumulation of deleterious mutations, along with a secondary effect of species genotype…
Using Monte Carlo model of biological evolution we have discovered that populations can switch between two different strategies of their genomes' evolution; Darwinian purifying selection and complementing the haplotypes. The first one is…
We introduce a stochastic model of a population with overlapping generations and arbitrary levels of self-fertilization versus outcrossing. We study how the global graph of reproductive relationships, or population pedigree, influences the…
Disentangling the processes leading populations to extinction is a major topic in ecology and conservation biology. The difficulty to find a mate in many species is one of these processes. Here, we investigate the impact of…
The origin of altruistic behavior, i.e. the behavior that is useful for a population or a species but goes at the expense of an altruistic individual, has long been a challenge for students of evolutionary biology. The populations with…
Understanding the evolution of binary traits, which affects the birth and survival of species and also the rate of molecular evolution, remains challenging. A typical example is the evolution of mating systems in plant species. In this…
Life finds a way. For sessile organisms like plants, the need to adapt to changes in the environment is even more poignant. For humanity, the need to develop crops that can grow in diverse environments and feed our growing population is an…
Mechanisms leading to speciation are a major focus in evolutionary biology. In this paper, we present and study a stochastic model of population where individuals, with type a or A, are equivalent from ecological, demographical and spatial…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. It is well known that population structure can affect evolutionary dynamics. Traditionally, natural selection is studied between mutants that differ in reproductive rate, but are…
We explain how hierarchical organization of biological systems emerges naturally during evolution, through a transition in the units of individuality. We will show how these transitions are the result of competing selective forces operating…
To learn about the past from a sample of genomic sequences, one needs to understand how evolutionary processes shape genetic diversity. Most population genetic inference is based on frameworks assuming adaptive evolution is rare. But if…
Despite increasing data from population-wide sequencing studies, the risk for recessive disorders in consanguineous partnerships is still heavily debated. An important aspect that has not sufficiently been investigated theoretically, is the…
Recruitment dynamics, or the distribution of the number of offspring among individuals, is central for understanding ecology and evolution. Sweepstakes reproduction (heavy right-tailed offspring number distribution) is central for…
Plants at high population density compete for light, showing a series of physiological responses known as the shade avoidance syndrome. These responses are controlled by the synthesis of the hormone auxin, which is regulated by two signals,…
The ongoing explosion of genome sequence data is transforming how we reconstruct and understand the histories of biological systems. Across biological scales, from individual cells to populations and species, trees-based models provide a…