Genetic drift describes random fluctuations in the numbers of gene variants in a population. Genetic drift takes place when the occurrence of variant forms of a gene, called alleles, increases and ...

In natural populations, the mechanisms of evolution do not act in isolation. This is crucially important to conservation geneticists, who grapple with the implications of these evolutionary processes ...

Chaotic genetic patchiness denotes unexpected patterns of genetic differentiation that are observed at a fine scale and are not stable in time. These patterns have been described in marine species ...

Neanderthals may have never truly gone extinct, according to new research – at least not in the genetic sense.

Genetic drift and natural selection were analyzed in a genetically isolated Zapotec-speaking community in the Valley of Oaxaca, southern Mexico. Moderately intense genetic drift and selection ...

Erangi Heenkenda, co-lead author of the PNAS paper who received her PhD in forestry and natural resources from Purdue this month, prepares to take a sample from a frozen pupfish that will be used for ...

Currently, there are several hypotheses surrounding the disappearance of Neanderthals. While they all have at least some ...

In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers developed and validated an approach for the joint inference of measurement noise and genetic drift by analyzing time-series data ...

Eastern Pennsylvania is home to beautiful farmlands and countryside, but it's also a gold mine of information for geneticists, who have studied the region's Amish culture for decades. Because of their ...

Scientists have discovered several genetic variants that protect Europeans from the bubonic plague — but also increase the risk of immune disorders. By Carl Zimmer Many Europeans carry genetic ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Scientists have identified a new member on the genetic family tree of an endangered pupfish native to south-central New Mexico. “We went into this thinking that there was one ...