BTRY 6910

Advanced Population Genetics

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2022-2023.

This course covers the latest development and cutting-edge research topics in population genetics, aiming to enable students to perform research in population genetics. The first part will cover coalescent theory and inference involving complex demography. The second part will discuss natural selection and methods for inferring selection. We will allude to the complexity of demographic history and natural selection and their importance in explaining genomic patterns. The third part will introduce new data types and the challenges and opportunities with these data. We will dive into genotype likelihood and will emphasize the importance of simulation in population genetics. The course will be mostly delivered through lecturing, each interspersed with short conversations about reading assignments. Coursework involves reading literature, solving problem sets, and a course project.

When Offered Spring.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: BIOMG 2800 or BIOEE 1780, BTRY 3080 or BTRY 3010, BTRY 4810, or equivalents.

• Apply population genetic theory to interpret patterns of genetic data.
• Explain how mutation, recombination, gene flow, and selection affect the coalescence process.
• Develop mathematical models to describe the genetic data-generating process.
• Construct the genotype likelihood under different models.
• Choose appropriate population genetic inference tools for analyzing different types of genetic data.
• Extract and use public domain genetic data and perform sensible tests on them.
• Develop population genetic simulations with popular simulators such as SLiM and msPrime.
• Apply scientific writing and presentation skills.

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