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All possible phenotypes are not equally accessible to evolving populations. In fact, only phenotypes of large size, i.e. those resulting from many different genotypes, are found in populations of sequences, presumably because they are…
Geographic structure can affect patterns of genetic differentiation and speciation rates. In this article, we investigate the dynamics of genetic distances in a geographically structured metapopulation. We model the metapopulation as a…
Divergent word usages reflect differences among people. In this paper, we present a novel angle for studying word usage divergence -- word interpretations. We propose an approach that quantifies semantic differences in interpretations among…
GWAS in humans are revealing the genetic architecture of biomedical and anthropomorphic traits, i.e., the frequencies and effect sizes of variants that contribute to heritable variation in a trait. To interpret these findings, we need to…
In ecology, species can mitigate their extinction risks in uncertain environments by diversifying individual phenotypes. This observation is quantified by the theory of bet-hedging, which provides a reason for the degree of phenotypic…
Phylogenomics heavily relies on well-curated sequence data sets that consist, for each gene, exclusively of 1:1-orthologous. Paralogs are treated as a dangerous nuisance that has to be detected and removed. We show here that this severe…
The study of associations and their causal explanations is a central research activity whose methodology varies tremendously across fields. Even within specialized subfields, comparisons across textbooks and journals reveals that the basics…
Heritability is a central parameter in quantitative genetics, both from an evolutionary and a breeding perspective. For plant traits heritability is traditionally estimated by comparing within and between genotype variability. This approach…
Background: Heritability is a central measure in genetics quantifying how much of the variability observed in a trait is attributable to genetic differences. Existing methods for estimating heritability are most often based on random-effect…
There is an urgent and well-recognized need to extend genetic studies to diverse populations, but several obstacles continue to be prohibitive, including (but not limited to) the difficulty of recruiting individuals from diverse populations…
Replication helps ensure that a genotype-phenotype association observed in a genome-wide association (GWA) study represents a credible association and is not a chance finding or an artifact due to uncontrolled biases. We discuss…
Our understanding of risk preferences can be sharpened by considering their evolutionary basis. The existing literature has focused on two sources of risk: idiosyncratic risk and aggregate risk. We introduce a new source of risk, heritable…
The majority of common diseases are influenced by multiple genetic and environmental factors such as Cancer. Even though uncovering the main causes of disease is deemed difficult due to the complexity of gene-gene and gene-environment…
Divergence between populations for a given trait can be driven by natural or sexual selection, interacting with migration behaviour. Mating preference for different phenotypes can lead to the emergence and persistence of differentiated…
Gene set analysis, a popular approach for analysing high-throughput gene expression data, aims to identify sets of genes that show enriched expression patterns between two conditions. In addition to the multitude of methods available for…
Social networks exhibit strikingly systematic patterns across a wide range of human contexts. While genetic variation accounts for a significant portion of the variation in many complex social behaviors, the heritability of egocentric…
Observation of phenotypic diversity in a population of genetically identical cells is often linked to the stochastic nature of chemical reactions involved in gene regulatory networks. We investigate the distribution of population averaged…
The observation that phenotypic variability is ubiquitous in isogenic populations has led to a multitude of experimental and theoretical studies seeking to probe the causes and consequences of this variability. Whether it be in the context…
With advances in sequencing technologies, there are now massive amounts of genomic data from across all life, leading to the possibility that a robust Tree of Life can be constructed. However, "gene tree heterogeneity", which is when…
Machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to inform critical decisions. There is a growing concern about bias, that algorithms may produce uneven outcomes for individuals in different demographic groups. In this work, we measure…