About Evolutionary Genomics

Genetics has been a part of evolutionary biology for over a century, and the history of genetics in such studies is rich. In the 1930s and 1940s, the works of the more traditional evolutionary biology fields, systematics, and palaeontology, were brought together with the growing field of genetics into the Evolutionary Synthesis.  First came population genetics which showed that genetic change worked together with natural selection for biological evolution.

The birth of modern evolutionary genetics and molecular evolution began with the pioneering work of Harry Harris, Richard Lewontin, and his close colleague Jack Hubby. Their work incorporating the novel (at the time) allozyme analysis technology allowed researchers to rapidly amass population-level genetic data. In addition, Motoo Kimura developed the neutral theory of evolution, which added a new dimension to evolutionary theory showing that change is not always adaptive. The next thirty years were marked by the infusion of DNA data allowed by rapidly evolving DNA-sequencing technologies. Now, whole genome data are common components of evolutionary genetics and genomics.

Genomes have become the currency of modern evolutionary genetics and the field is rich with technological innovation and a wide breadth of subject matter and studies that use genome sequences and analyses to understand:

• The nature of natural selection at the genomic level
• Population history and the movement of populations
• The genetic architecture of disease, human traits, and evolutionary important adaptive traits (like melanism in animals)
• The use of Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS), QTL analysis, methods of detecting selective sweeps, and other high-powered genome-based evolutionary approaches
• Evolution of genomes (genome architecture and molecular evolution of genomes)
• Genomic perspectives on the evolution of sex, mutation rates and speciation
• Taxon history, extinction, and even de-extinction through the study of ancient DNA from extinct organisms
• Genomic approaches to biodiversity studies
• Experimental evolution

This collection invites Research Articles, Method Articles, and Data Notes in the field of evolutionary genetics and demonstrate a cross-section of the state of the field right now. The subjects of acceptable articles include population genetics, the genetics of natural selection and adaptation, genome evolution, utility of evolutionary genomics (including ancient DNA) in phylogenetic analysis, speciation and extinction, and population dynamics of migration and dispersal. We also welcome forward-looking theory papers, bioinformatics approaches to comparing populations, and studies that highlight the history of life on this planet. We also solicit papers that describe novel computational approaches for analysis of genomes focusing on evolutionary biology, including bioinformatic approaches to handling issues such as environmental contamination and degraded DNA.

Keywords: natural selection; genome evolution; population genomics; next generation sequencing (NGS); biodiversity

This collection is part of the Genomics and Genetics Gateway.

Any questions about this collection? Please get in contact directly with research@f1000.com.