Dr. Diego Alvarado-Serrano
The Quantitative Biology Seminar series presents Dr. Diego F. Alvarado-Serrano discussing “Coupling spatial, demographic, and genetic models to uncover species’ evolutionary histories” on Tuesday, Oct. 8, from 4 to 5 p.m. in Morton 115.
Alvarado-Serrano is Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Ohio University.
Abstract: Although historical population genetics have traditionally overlooked the role that species’ spatio-temporal patterns of distribution and movement have on their genetic constitution, recent empirical and theoretical analyses have uncovered the importance of incorporating spatial pedigrees into historical demography. Yet, the challenge remains how to explicitly capture the relevant biological and geographical complexity of these highly dynamic systems in order to accurately reconstruct spatial pedigrees. In this talk, I will provide an overview of several novel analytical tools that take advantage of the surge of georeferenced genomic data to address a range of evolutionary and ecological questions under biologically realistic scenarios. In particular, I will focus on tools for integrative modeling that simultaneously combine spatial, demographic, and genetic simulations under an Approximate Bayesian Computation approach, and how these tools can be used to capture emergent spatial genetic processes.
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