PECASE: Genetical Theory of Population Subdivision and Divergence

提案标题：PECASE：种群细分和多样性的遗传学理论机构：哈佛大学这项工作将增强我们使用DNA或其他遗传数据来推断种群结构和种群历史的能力。例如，它将使我们能够回答这样的问题：“这些人口之间发生了多少移民？”或者“这些人口是什么时候开始分化的？”为了做到这一点，将扩展一系列用于描述种群内和种群之间遗传变异模式的数学模型。因此，该项目的第二个影响将是应用数学和概率论领域的进步。此外，还将制作两本书和一个互动网站。这些工作的目的是促进人口遗传学的一个分支的教学，该分支被大多数工作者使用，但很少被教授，被称为联合理论。这项工作的理论方面将集中在分析不同事件以极大不同的速度发生的人口模型。例如，如果迁移率很高，那么迁移事件发生的频率将比突变事件高得多，而突变事件往往非常罕见。当时间尺度上出现这种差异时，分析就会变得更简单，数学模型本身就具有使它们变得有趣的特性。这些简化将被用于产生一系列方法和测试，经验种群遗传学家可以使用这些方法和测试来研究自然种群的历史。这些书籍将使种群遗传学的教学与当前的研究方法和思想保持同步。具体地说，他们将使用和倡导现代系谱学或联合的方法来处理这一主题。联合方法考虑了遗传数据样本的系谱历史，因此比对整个群体建模的经典群体遗传学方法更适合实证工作。该项目最初是作为职业奖资助的，并于2004年5月转换为总统早期职业工程师和科学家奖(PECASE)奖。

Proposal Title: PECASE: Genetical Theory of Population Subdivision and DivergenceInstitution: Harvard UniversityThis work will enhance our ability to use DNA or other genetic data to make inferences about population structure and population history. It will allow us, for instance, to answer questions like "How much migration has occurred between these populations?" or "When did these populations diverge from each other?" In order to do this, a body of mathematical models that are used to describe patterns of genetic variation within and between populations will be extended. Thus, a secondary impact of the project will be an advance in the fields applied mathematics and probability theory. Further, two books and an interactive web site will be produced. The aim of these is to promote the teaching of the branch of population genetics used by most workers but rarely taught, called coalescent theory.The theoretical aspects of the work will focus on the analysis of population models in which different events happen at vastly different rates. For example, if migration rates are high, then migration events will happen much more often than mutation events, which tend to be very rare. When such differences in time scale occur, the analyses are simpler and the mathematical models have properties that make them interesting in their own right. These simplifications will be used to produce a battery of methods and tests, which empirical population geneticists can employ to study the history of natural populations. The books will bring the teaching of population genetics up to date with current research methods and ideas. Specifically, they will use and advocate the modern genealogical, or coalescent, approach to the subject. The coalescent approach considers the genealogical history of a sample of genetic data, and thus can be better suited to empirical work than classical population genetic approaches which model entire populations.This project was originally funded as a CAREER award, and was converted to a Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists (PECASE) award in May 2004.