Evolutionary Genetics

Text: Dan Graur and Wen-Hsiung Li, Fundamental of Molecular Evolution
  Primary Literature (provided as PDFs)

Overall Course Design: 
The primary focus of the course is to present an broad overview of evolutionary biology from the “new synthesis” (early 1900) to Evolutionary Genomics.  The critical points to emphasize is the importance of standing genetic variation, the role of neutral evolutionary process and its implication versus evolution by natural selection and how a evolution perspective provides meaning insights into the biology.

Grades: Participation in discussion 50%
  test 25%
  Written paper (2-3 pgs). 25%

Outline and References

Introduction   Chapter 1; Graur & Li

Evolutionary Synthesis

(Mayr)  Chapters 12 and 13
(Dobzhansky, '73)

Dynamics of Gene in Populations, Chapter 2; Graur & Li

Neutral and Nearly Neutral Theories
(Ohta and Gillespie, '96)
(Kreitman, '96)

Rates and Patterns of Nucleotide Substitutions, Chapter 4; Graur & Li

Molecular Clocks and the Rate of Molecular Evolution
(Wray Levinton and Shapiro, '96)
(Hedges and Kumar, '03)
(Graur and Martin, '04)
(Hedges and Kumar, '04)

Phylogenetic Methods
(Hillis Huelsenbeck and Cunningham, '94)
(Brower, '96)
(Pagel, '99)
(Beninda-Emonds, '04)
Phylogenetic Applications
(Block et al., '93)
(Pierce and Crawford, '97)
(Rokas et al., '03)
(Thomas et al., '00)
(Soltis and Soltis, '01)

Phlogeography and Population-Level Phylogenies
(Hare, '01)
(Olsen and Schaal, '99)
(Vigilant et al., '91)
(Beheregaray et al., '04)

Molecular Population Genetics and Demography
(Rosenberg and Nordborg, '02)
(Templeton, '02)
(Dupanloup et al., '04)
(Kittler Kayser and Stoneking, '03)

Molecular Population Genetics: Tests of Selection
(Luikart et al., '03)
(Nielsen, '01)  
(Smith and Eyre-Walker, '02)
(Enard et al., '02)
(Wang et al., '99)
(Mead et al., '03)

Speciation Reviews
(Bradshaw et al., '95)
(Hawthorne and Via, '01)
(Presgraves et al., '03)
(Rieseberg et al., '96)

Regulatory Evolution
(Rifkin Kim and White, '03)
(Oleksiak Churchill and Crawford, '02)
(Wittkopp Haerum and Clark, '04)
(Rockman and Wray, '02)
(Abouheif and Wray, '02)
(Crawford Segal and Barnett, '99)

Genome Evolution
(Lynch and Conery, '00)
(Moore and Purugganan, '03)
(Gu et al., '04)
(Vision Brown and Tanksley, '00)
(Adams et al., '02)
(Bergthorsson et al., '03)

Student Presentations Last 2 weeks.

Reference:

Mayr, E. The growth of biological thought: Belknap.

Dobzhansky, T. (1973). Nothing in biology make sense expect in the light of evolution. The American Biology  Teacher 35, 125-129.

Vigilant, L., Stoneking, M., Harpending, H., Hawkes, K. and Wilson, A. C. (1991). African populations and the evolution of human mitochondrial DNA. Science 253, 1503-7.

Block, B. A., Finnerty, J. R., Stewart, A. F. and Kidd, J. (1993). Evolution of endothermy in fish: mapping physiological traits on a molecular phylogeny. Science 260, 210-4.

Hillis, D. M. Huelsenbeck, J. P. and Cunningham, C. W. (1994). Application and accuracy of molecular phylogenies. Science 264, 671-7.

Bradshaw, H. D., Wilbert, S. M., Otto, K. G. and Schemske, D. W. (1995). Genetic mapping of floral traits associated with reproductive  isolation in monkeyflowers (Mimulus). Nature 376.

Brower, A. V. Z. e. a. (1996). Gene trees, species trees and systematics: a cladistic perspective. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 27, 423-50.

Kreitman, M. (1996). The neutral theory is dead. Long live the neutral theory. Bioessays 18, 678-83; discussion 683.

Ohta, T. and Gillespie, J. H. (1996). Development of Neutral and Nearly Neutral Theories. Theor Popul Biol 49, 128-42.

Rieseberg, L., Sinervo, B., Linder, C., Ungerer, M. and Arias, D. (1996). Role of Gene Interactions in Hybrid Speciation: Evidence from Ancient and Experimental Hybrids. Science 272, 741-5.

Wray, G. A. Levinton, J. S. and Shapiro, L. H. (1996). Molecular Evidence for Deep Precambrian Divergences Among Metazoan Phyla. Science 274, 568-73.

Pierce, V. A. and Crawford, D. L. (1997). Phylogenetic analysis of thermal acclimation of the glycolytic enzymes in the genus Fundulus. Physiological Zoology 70, 597-609.

Crawford, D. L. Segal, J. A. and Barnett, J. L. (1999). Evolutionary analysis of TATA-less proximal promoter function. Molecular Biology & Evolution 16, 194-207.

Olsen, K. M. and Schaal, B. A. (1999). Evidence on the origin of cassava: phylogeography of Manihot esculenta. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A96, 5586-91.

Pagel, M. (1999). Inferring the historical patterns of biological evolution. Nature 401, 877-84.

Wang, R. L., Stec, A., Hey, J., Lukens, L. and Doebley, J. (1999). The limits of selection during maize domestication. Nature 398, 236-9.

Lynch, M. and Conery, J. S. (2000). The evolutionary fate and consequences of duplicate genes. Science 290, 1151-5.

Thomas, M. A., Walsh, K. A., Wolf, M. R., McPheron, B. A. and Marden, J. H. (2000). Molecular phylogenetic analysis of evolutionary trends in stonefly wing structure and locomotor behavior. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 97, 13178-83.

Vision, T. Brown, D. and Tanksley, S. (2000). The origins of genomic duplications in Arabidopsis. Science 290, 2114-7.

Hare, M. P. (2001). Prospects for nuclear gene phylogeography. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16, 700-706.

Hawthorne, D. J. and Via, S. (2001). Genetic linkage of ecological specialization and reproductive isolation in pea aphids. Nature 412, 904-7.

Nielsen, R. (2001). Statistical tests of selective neutrality in the age of genomics. Heredity 86, 641-7.

Soltis, P. S. and Soltis, D. E. (2001). Molecular systematics: assembling and using the Tree of Life. Taxon 50, 663-77.

Abouheif, E. and Wray, G. A. (2002). Evolution of the gene network underlying wing polyphenism in ants. Science 297, 249-52.

Adams, K. L., Qiu, Y. L., Stoutemyer, M. and Palmer, J. D. (2002). Punctuated evolution of mitochondrial gene content: high and variable rates of mitochondrial gene loss and transfer to the nucleus during angiosperm evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 99, 9905-12.

Enard, W., Przeworski, M., Fisher, S. E., Lai, C. S., Wiebe, V., Kitano, T., Monaco, A. P. and Paabo, S. (2002). Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Nature 418, 869-72.

Oleksiak, M. F. Churchill, G. A. and Crawford, D. L. (2002). Variation in gene expression within and among natural populations. Nat Genet 32, 261-6.

Rockman, M. V. and Wray, G. A. (2002). Abundant raw material for cis-regulatory evolution in humans. Mol Biol Evol 19, 1991-2004.

Rosenberg, N. A. and Nordborg, M. (2002). Genealogical trees, coalescent theory and the analysis of genetic polymorphisms. Nat Rev Genet3, 380-90.

Smith, N. G. and Eyre-Walker, A. (2002). Adaptive protein evolution in Drosophila. Nature 415, 1022-4.

Templeton, A. (2002). Out of Africa again and again. Nature 416, 45-51.

Bergthorsson, U., Adams, K. L., Thomason, B. and Palmer, J. D. (2003). Widespread horizontal transfer of mitochondrial genes in flowering plants. Nature 424, 197-201.

Hedges, S. B. and Kumar, S. (2003). Genomic clocks and evolutionary timescales. Trends in Genetics 19, 200-206.

Kittler, R. Kayser, M. and Stoneking, M. (2003). Molecular evolution of Pediculus humanus and the origin of clothing. Curr Biol13, 1414-7.

Luikart, G., England, P. R., Tallmon, D., Jordan, S. and Taberlet, P. (2003). The power and promise of population genomics: from genotyping to genome typing. Nat Rev Genet 4, 981-94.

Mead, S., Stumpf, M. P., Whitfield, J., Beck, J. A., Poulter, M., Campbell, T., Uphill, J. B., Goldstein, D., Alpers, M., Fisher, E. M. et al. (2003). Balancing selection at the prion protein gene consistent with prehistoric kurulike epidemics. Science 300, 640-3.

Moore, R. C. and Purugganan, M. D. (2003). The early stages of duplicate gene evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 100, 15682-7.

Presgraves, D. C., Balagopalan, L., Abmayr, S. M. and Orr, H. A. (2003). Adaptive evolution drives divergence of a hybrid inviability gene between two species of Drosophila. Nature 423, 715-9.

Rifkin, S. A. Kim, J. and White, K. P. (2003). Evolution of gene expression in the Drosophila melanogaster subgroup. Nat Genet 33, 138-44.

Rokas, A., Williams, B. L., King, N. and Carroll, S. B. (2003). Genome-scale approaches to resolving incongruence in molecular phylogenies. Nature 425, 798-804.

Beheregaray, L. B., Gibbs, J. P., Havill, N., Fritts, T. H., Powell, J. R. and Caccone, A. (2004). Giant tortoises are not so slow: rapid diversification and biogeographic consensus in the Galapagos. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 101, 6514-9.

Beninda-Emonds, O. (2004). The evolution of supertrees. Trends in Ecol. Evol. 19, 315-322.

Dupanloup, I., Bertorelle, G., Chikhi, L. and Barbujani, G. (2004). Estimating the impact of prehistoric admixture on the genome of europeans. Mol Biol Evol 21, 1361-72.

Graur, D. and Martin, W. (2004). Reading the entrails of chickens: molecular timescales of evolution and the illusion of precision. Trends Genet 20, 80-6.

Gu, Z., Rifkin, S. A., White, K. P. and Li, W. H. (2004). Duplicate genes increase gene expression diversity within and between species. Nat Genet 36, 577-9.

Hedges, S. B. and Kumar, S. (2004). Precision of molecular time estimates. Trends Genet 20, 242-7.

Wittkopp, P. J. Haerum, B. K. and Clark, A. G. (2004). Evolutionary changes in cis and trans gene regulation. Nature 430, 85-8.