Université de Fribourg

Demographic history of a recent invasion of house mice on the isolated Island of Gough

Gray, Melissa M. ; Wegmann, Daniel ; Haasl, Ryan J. ; White, Michael A. ; Gabriel, Sofia I. ; Searle, Jeremy B. ; Cuthbert, Richard J. ; Ryan, Peter G. ; Payseur, Bret A.

In: Molecular Ecology, 2014, vol. 23, no. 8, p. 1923–1939

Island populations provide natural laboratories for studying key contributors to evolutionary change, including natural selection, population size and the colonization of new environments. The demographic histories of island populations can be reconstructed from patterns of genetic diversity. House mice (Mus musculus) inhabit islands throughout the globe, making them an attractive system for...

Université de Fribourg

Genetic estimates of population age in the water flea, Daphnia magna

Robinson, John D. ; Haag, Christoph R. ; Hall, David W. ; Pajunen, V. Ilmari ; Wares, John P.

In: Journal of Heredity, 2012, vol. 103, no. 6, p. 887-897

Genetic datasets can be used to date evolutionary events, even on recent time scales if sufficient data are available. We used statistics calculated from multilocus microsatellite datasets to estimate population ages in data generated through coalescent simulations and in samples from populations of known age in a metapopulation of Daphnia magna in Finland. Our simulation results show that age...

Université de Fribourg

Genotypic selection in Daphnia populations consisting of inbred sibships

Haag, Christoph ; Hebert, Dieter

In: Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2007, vol. 20, no. 3, p. 881–891

The genetic basis of fitness reduction associated with inbreeding is still poorly understood. Here we use associations between allozyme genotypes and fitness to investigate the genetic basis of inbreeding depression in experimental outdoor populations of the water flea, Daphnia magna. In Daphnia, a phase of clonal reproduction follows hatching from sexually produced resting eggs,...

Université de Fribourg

Founder events as determinants of within-island and among-island genetic structure of Daphnia metapopulations

Haag, Christoph R. ; Riek, Myriam ; Hottinger, Jürgen W. ; Pajunen, V. Ilmari ; Ebert, Dieter

In: Heredity, 2006, vol. 96, p. 150–158

The genetic structure of metapopulations offers insights into the genetic consequences of local extinction and recolonization. We studied allozyme variation in rock pool metapopulations of two species of waterfleas (Daphnia) with the aim to understand how these dynamics influence genetic differentiation. We screened 138 populations of D. magna and 65 populations of D....