Integrating Population Genetics Research Articles

Putting the ‘landscape’ in landscape genetics

Landscape genetics has emerged as a new research area that integrates population genetics, landscape ecology and spatial statistics. Researchers in this field can combine the high resolution of genetic markers with spatial data and a variety of statistical methods to evaluate the role that landscape variables play in shaping genetic diversity and population structure. While interest in this research area is growing rapidly, our ability to fully utilize landscape data, test explicit hypotheses and truly integrate these diverse disciplines has lagged behind. Part of the current challenge in the development of the field of landscape genetics is bridging the communication and knowledge gap between these highly specific and technical disciplines. The goal of this review is to help bridge this gap by exposing geneticists to terminology, sampling methods and analysis techniques widely used in landscape ecology and spatial statistics but rarely addressed in the genetics literature. We offer a definition for the term "landscape genetics", provide an overview of the landscape genetics literature, give guidelines for appropriate sampling design and useful analysis techniques, and discuss future directions in the field. We hope, this review will stimulate increased dialog and enhance interdisciplinary collaborations advancing this exciting new field.

COMMUNITY GENETICS: NEW INSIGHTS INTO COMMUNITY ECOLOGY BY INTEGRATING POPULATION GENETICS1

EcologyVolume 84, Issue 3 p. 543-544 Special Features COMMUNITY GENETICS: NEW INSIGHTS INTO COMMUNITY ECOLOGY BY INTEGRATING POPULATION GENETICS† Anurag A. Agrawal, Anurag A. AgrawalSearch for more papers by this author Anurag A. Agrawal, Anurag A. AgrawalSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 March 2003 https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(2003)084[0543:CGNIIC]2.0.CO;2Citations: 45 † Reprints of this 59 page Special Feature are available for $9.75 each, either as pdf files or as hard copy. Prepayment is required. Order reprints from the Ecological Society of America, Attention: Reprint Department, 1707 H Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington D.C. 20006 (e-mail: esaHQ;caesa.org). Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume84, Issue3March 2003Pages 543-544 RelatedInformation

Directionality theory and the evolution of body size.

Directionality theory, a dynamic theory of evolution that integrates population genetics with demography, is based on the concept of evolutionary entropy, a measure of the variability in the age of reproducing individuals in a population. The main tenets of the theory are three principles relating the response to the ecological constraints a population experiences, with trends in entropy as the population evolves under mutation and natural selection. (i) Stationary size or fluctuations around a stationary size (bounded growth): a unidirectional increase in entropy; (ii) prolonged episodes of exponential growth (unbounded growth), large population size: a unidirectional decrease in entropy; and (iii) prolonged episodes of exponential growth (unbounded growth), small population size: random, non-directional change in entropy. We invoke these principles, together with an allometric relationship between entropy, and the morphometric variable body size, to provide evolutionary explanations of three empirical patterns pertaining to trends in body size, namely (i) Cope's rule, the tendency towards size increase within phyletic lineages; (ii) the island rule, which pertains to changes in body size that occur as species migrate from mainland populations to colonize island habitats; and (iii) Bergmann's rule, the tendency towards size increase with increasing latitude. The observation that these ecotypic patterns can be explained in terms of the directionality principles for entropy underscores the significance of evolutionary entropy as a unifying concept in forging a link between micro-evolution, the dynamics of gene frequency change, and macro-evolution, dynamic changes in morphometric variables.