Speaker:

Dr Peter Whigham, Department of Information Science

Title:

A Spatially-Explicit Model of Genetic Tradeoff

Location:

Archway 2

Abstract:

This talk will describe a cellular-automata model used to explore the consequences of introducing two simple genetic tradeoff mechanisms to the gradient response of monoecious diploid individuals. One tradeoff relates the plasticity of an individual to its overall fitness, where individuals that can tolerate a wide range of environmental values are less fit than individuals with a narrow tolerance range. The second tradeoff assumes that individuals that can live at greater environmental values are placed under stress and therefore reach maturity later in their life cycle. In both cases the resulting population distributions produced clear genetic differentiation, showing that simple tradeoff mechanisms are one route towards genetic isolation and, ultimately, speciation. A brief introduction to population genetics and individual-based models will be given as background for the talk.