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Minicourse: Coalescents in population genetics and evolutionary biology. Prof. James Degnan.

This minicourse will introduce students to a stochastic process called the coalescent which is widely used in population genetics and evolutionary biology. The coalescent model is used to understand human evolutionary history, such as the split between humans and Neanderthals, dating evolutionary adaptations, such as genes for lactose tolerance, and for inferring relationships between species, such as whether humans are more closely related to chimpanzees or gorillas.

The coalescent is a probability model which is a continuous-time approximation to discrete models of ancestry with discrete generations. The coalescent process works backwards in time: instead of a branching process in which individual lineages split to represent descendants, we imagine a sample of lineages from the present and model those lineages having common ancestors in the past until all lineages coalesce into a single ancestors for each individual in the sample.

This course does not assume any background in probability and will cover the following topics:
(1) Probability background necessary for understanding the coalescent
(2) Derivation of the coalescent from discrete probability models such as the Wright-Fisher and Moran models
(3) Properties of trees generated under the coalescent
(4) Extensions of the coalescent to multiple species, hybridization, or subdivided populations
(5) Using software to simulate the coalescent

Professor Degnan joined our department in Fall 2013, after spending several years in New Zealand. He is an expert in coalescent theory, populations genetics and phylogenetics. This workshop gives you an opportunity to learn more about this fascinating subject, and gives you an introduction to statistical measurements.