Others - Page 17

This Friday, September 15th, we're discussing a paper by Scranton et al. (2016): "The importance of the timescale of the fitness metric for estimates of selection on phenotypic traits during a period of demographic change".

Hope to see you there!

Body size is often linked intricately with survival and reproductive rates, and therefore affects population dynamics. It is not unlikely for population collapses to be preceded by a change in body size distributions. If those changes happen long enough in advance, they may serve as early warning signals to predict population collapses.

We welcome you to two open lectures! Meave Leakey on "Milestones in the story of us – why and when did we come to be?", and Alan Alda on "Getting beyond a blind date with science". This event is part of the University’s annual celebration.

By Dr. Adam Philippy, National Human Genome Research Institute

Abstract

For the human population to maintain a constant size from generation to generation, an increase in fertility must compensate for the reduction in the mean fitness of the population caused, among others, by deleterious mutations. The required increase in fertility due to this mutational load depends on the number of sites in the genome that are functional, the mutation rate, and the fraction of deleterious mutations among all mutations in functional regions. These dependencies and the fact that there exists a maximum tolerable replacement level fertility can be used to put an upper limit on the fraction of the human genome that can be functional. Mutational load considerations lead to the conclusion that the functional fraction within the human genome cannot exceed 25%, and is probably considerably lower.

paper

This Friday, July 7th, we're discussing a recent paper from the American Naturalist by Brombacher et al. (2017): " The Breakdown of Static and Evolutionary Allometries during Climatic Upheaval".

Hope to see you there!

This thursday, at the Speciation Journal Club, we will discuss a paper on 

what shapes the continuum of reproductive isolation  using the famous Heliconius model system, by Mérot et al. 2017 (TProceedings B)

This thursday, at the Speciation Journal Club, we will discuss a paper on frequency dependence, immunity and migration by Bolnick and Stutz published in 2017 in Nature.

Experts have repeatedly predicted that human life expectancy soon will reach a ceiling, but they have been proven wrong every time. Annual increase in life expectancy has not slowed down, and it continues to increase by 3 months every year.

Body mass is an important indicator of general condition as it reflects energy accessible for survival and reproduction. Recent evidence show that several species have experienced shifts in their body mass due to climate change. In the monogamous wandering albatross, average body mass and breeding success has increased over the last years. Surprisingly, the increase in breeding success seems to be due to heavier fathers investing more in their sons.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1854/20170397

It is our pleasure to invite you all to a combined “CEES Beyond 2017” Kick-Off and CEES Spring Party.

This Friday, April 28th, we're discussing a recent paper on the newest SSE model by Rabosky & Goldberg (2017): "FiSSE: A simple nonparametric test for the effects of a binary character on lineage diversification rates".

Hope to see you there!

Most demographic population models ignore males, but empirical evidence suggest that they should be included when vital rates are sex-specific. Assumptions about adult sex ratio, social structure, and mating system have been shown to affect estimates of extinction risk and projections of population dynamics. We discuss about when and how to apply two-sex models.

We are inviting all who to an open kick-off seminar for our RCN “Toppforsk” project REPEAT (Evolutionary and functional importance of simple repeats in the genome).

By Susan D. Jones, University of Minnesota, USA

By Filip Volckaert from the University of Leuven

By Mats Gyllenberg from the University of Helsinki

Our first statistics course warns us about making predictions beyond the observed range of data. What that means exactly is difficult to say though when we use more complex models with link functions, higher order effects and interactive terms. We discuss a quantitative method for assessing bias when extrapolating.

This thursday, at the Speciation Journal Club, we will discuss a paper on  Adaptation to Global Change via Transposable Element and Epigenetics, by Rey et al. 2016 (Trends in Ecology and Evolution)

This Friday, March 24th, we're discussing a recent paper by Cantalapiedra et al. (2017): "Decoupled ecomorphological evolution and diversification in Neogene-Quaternary horses".

Hope to see you there!

By Alan C. Love from University of Minnesota