Genome evolution, natural selection, and recombination landscapes

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Milan Malinsky

Ambizione PI, University of Bern, Switzerland

 

Abstract:

All present-day genomes are the product of millions of years of evolution. Recombination and natural selection are central processes both in evolution and in genetics. By breaking linkage and shuffling alleles, recombination contributes to the variation among present-day genome sequences. This genetic variation is the substrate upon which natural selection acts. Recombination and natural selection influence each other in complex ways. Local recombination rates modulate the effects of selection while selection can also act to modulate recombination rates. Moreover, the genomic signatures of selection affect our ability to infer recombination rates from population genomic data. And variation in recombination rates can confound our inference of selection. In this talk, I am going to provide an overview of my work to infer signatures of evolutionary processes from population genomic data, with a particular focus on natural selection and recombination.