On identifying variation related to local adaptation

Outi Savolainen

Department of Biology

University of Oulu, Finland

In addition to natural (or artificial) selection, different demographic evolutionary forces such as changes in population size and gene flow influence patterns of diversity of populations. This presentation will first discuss why it is of interest to distinguish patterns due mainly to demographic to those much influenced by selection, especailly with relevance to genetic resources for responding to climate change. There are many different approaches for trying to identify the loci related to adaptation. Many of these start with identifying adaptive quantitative traits  and then aiming at mapping the loci responsible for this variation. Other approaches use population genetics methods, either examining patterns of sequence variation that identify the action of various kinds of selection (in addition to demography). Other methods also use correlations of genetic variation with environmental variation to identify patterns generated by selection. Some of these approaches will be illustrated with examples mainly of variation in forest trees or in brassicaceous plants.