Genomic signatures of adaptive introgression

Date: 

Monday, March 20, 2017, 3:00pm

Location: 

Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street

 

Rasmus Nielsen
Center for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics, University of California, Berkeley
 

Abstract: Adaptive introgression is the transfer of beneficial alleles from one species to another through interbreeding.   It is increasingly being recognized as an important process in evolutionary biology.  I will discuss methods and theory relating to the identification of introgression, in particular the length distribution of introgressed fragments and patterns of linkage disequilibrium caused by introgression.  I will also discuss several instances of adaptive introgression in humans, including altitude adaption in Tibet and cold adaption in Greenland.