Theoretical Population and Quantitative Genetics

这项拟议的研究是对进化论的两个广泛领域的数学调查：分子进化和数量性状的进化。分子进化工作的主要目标是了解为什么遗传物质DNA在物种之间和物种内的个体之间存在如此大的差异。一种理论认为，这种变化的大部分是没有意义的，没有任何功能上的后果。我们正在研究的理论认为，大多数这种变异确实具有生物学后果。我们解决这个问题的方法包括将每个理论的预测与在实际DNA序列中观察到的模式进行比较。这项工作对于我们理解遗传变异的易感性具有潜在的价值，是由于DNA中的许多小突变还是几个大突变？我们的工作与前一种可能性有关。数量遗传学工作的主要目标是了解物种内和物种间可测量特征(如大小或体重)变异的遗传基础。这项工作中最大的概念性问题是将许多基因的组合效应形式化，以增加以前模型中缺失的生物学相关性。一旦这一理论到位，它将被用来研究几个具有进化意义的问题。这项工作将对农业非常重要，因为农业从业者需要更好的关于具有经济重要性的性状的遗传基础的理论，比如牛的产奶量。

The proposed research is a mathematical investigation into two broad areas of evolutionary theory: molecular evolution and the evolution of quantitative traits. The primary goal of the work on molecular evolution is to understand why there is so much variation in the genetic material, DNA, between species and between individuals within a species. One theory regards most of this variation as meaningless, having no functional consequences whatsoever. The theory that we are investigating argues that most of this variation does have biological consequences. Our approach to the problem involves a comparison of the predictions of each theory to the patterns observed in actual DNA sequences. This work is of potential value for our understanding of genetic variation susceptibility be viewed as due to many small mutations in DNA or to a few large ones? Our work is relevant to the former possibility. The primary goal of the work on quantitative genetics is to understand the genetic basis of variation in measurable traits, such as size or weight, both within and between species. The great conceptual problem in this work is to formalize the combined effects of many genes to interact with one another (through dominance and epistasis) in a way that adds biological relevance that was missing from previous models. Once the theory is in place, it will be used to investigate several problems of evolutionary interest. This work will be very important for agriculture, where practitioners require better theories of the genetic basis of traits, such as milk yield in cattle, that are of economic importance.