Lisha Naduvilezhath

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Dipl. Bioinf. Lisha Naduvilezhath

Section of Evolutionary Biology
LMU BioCenter
Grosshaderner Str. 2
82152 Planegg-Martinsried
Germany

E-Mail: LishaNadu@biologie.uni-muenchen.de

My PhD thesis

Population genetic methods for inferring adaptation in populations with complex demography

We will develop Bayesian and maximum likelihood based methods to test for natural selection in populations with complex demographic histories. In our two-step approach, we will first infer the demographic history using sequence data from neutrally evolving loci and from these analyses, we will develop a framework for investigating a set of candidate genes for the action of natural selection. Our methods will combine novel summary statistics, based on frequency spectra of polymorphisms, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques. We will design a subset of the summary statistics to differentiate between positive (directional) and balancing/diversifying selection. We will apply our methods to data sets from several projects within the Research Unit. Our primary example will be a data set of 17 loci from two closely related wild tomato species. These species inhabit the western coast of South America and each species is divided into isolated subpopulations. This substructure may impede the spread of advantageous substitutions and/or facilitate local adaptation.