Modern developments in theoretical population genetics

Abstract

Abstract Slatkin and Veuille invite leading population geneticists to summarise many of the recent developments in population genetics theory and its application to genetic data. The book has been assembled in honour of the late Gustave Malécot, one of the pioneers of theoretical population genetics. Whilst early chapters summarise Malécot's life and scientific contributions, the rest of the book is devoted to topics that trace their origin in Malécot's work. Several of the contributions describe recent developments in the coalescent theory, which can be viewed as a generalisation of Malécot's method for analysing identity by descent. Other chapters discuss recent developments in the study of geographic variation, genetic linkage, and allele age. The diversity of topics and the effectiveness with which various theoretical methods can be applied to DNA sequence data illustrates both the increasing relevance of theoretical population genetics and the depth of Malécot's insight into fundamental genetic processes. This exciting work will be of interest to population and statistical geneticists as well as a wider audience of evolutionary biologists.