Genetic differences are a critical driver of disease risk and healthy variation, across the tree of life. Mutations arise and spread in our distant, genealogical ancestors, and so genetic variation data can provide a window into our evolutionary past, allowing us to understand processes such as population size changes, admixture, natural selection, and even evolution of the mutation and recombination processes that generate the variation itself. It has long been recognised that knowledge of genealogical relationships among individuals would allow us to capture almost all the information available from such data. However, only in recent years has it become computationally feasible to infer such genealogies, genome-wide, from variation patterns. One such method, Relate, developed in our lab, allows approximate inference of genealogical trees under coalescent-like models, for up to tens of thousands of samples. Here, we will show that a powerful approach for inference is to identify and characterise departures from the relatively simple models used to build these trees. By defining a 'population' as a set of coalescence rates between labelled individuals backwards in time, we can uncover variability in these rates, and use a single collection of trees to identify ancient mixing events among populations - including 'ghost' groups we have never sampled - natural selection favouring the descendents of particular branches of the genealogy, and departures from mathematical expectations under clock-like behaviour, indicating disruption of recombination or mutation.[-]

We consider a population model in which the season alternates between winter and summer, and individuals can acquire mutations either that are advantageous in the summer and disadvantageous in the winter, or vice versa. Also, we assume that individuals in the population can either be active or dormant, and that individuals can move between these two states. Dormant individuals do not reproduce but do not experience selective pressures. We show that, under certain conditions, over time we see two waves of adaptation. Some individuals repeatedly acquire mutations that are beneficial in the summer, while others repeatedly acquire mutations that are beneficial in the winter. Individuals can survive the season during which they are less fit by entering a dormant state. This result suggests that, for populations in fluctuating environments, dormancy may have the potential to induce speciation. This is joint work with Fernando Cordero and Adrian Gonzalez Casanova.[-]

We provide an asymptotic analysis of a nonlinear integro-differential equation which describes the evolutionary dynamics of a population which reproduces sexually and which is subject to selection and competition. The sexual reproduction is modeled via a nonlinear integral term, known as the 'infinitesimal model'. We consider a regime of small segregational variance, where a parameter in the infinitesimal operator, which measures the deviation between the trait of the offspring and the mean parental trait, is small. We prove that in this regime the phenotypic distribution remains close to a Gaussian profile with a fixed small variance and we characterize the dynamics of the mean phenotypic trait via an ordinary differential equation. We also briefly discuss the extension of the method to the study of steady solutions and their stability.[-]

A popular line of research in evolutionary biology is to use time-calibrated phylogenies in order to infer the underlying diversification process. This involves the use of stochastic models of ultrametric trees, i.e., trees whose tips lie at the same distance from the root. We recast some well-known models of ultrametric trees (infinite regular trees, exchangeable coalescents, coalescent point processes) in the framework of so-called comb metric spaces and give some applications of coalescent point processes to the phylogeny of bird species.

However, these models of diversification assume that species are exchangeable particles, and this always leads to the same (Yule) tree shape in distribution. Here, we propose a non-exchangeable, individual-based, point mutation model of diversification, where interspecific pairwise competition is only felt from the part of individuals belonging to younger species. As the initial (meta)population size grows to infinity, the properly rescaled dynamics of species lineages converge to a one-parameter family of coalescent trees interpolating between the caterpillar tree and the Kingman coalescent.

Keywords: ultrametric tree, inference, phylogenetic tree, phylogeny, birth-death process, population dynamics, evolution[-]

Horizontal transfer of information is recognized as a major process in the evolution and adaptation of population, especially micro-organisms. There is a large literature but the previous models are either based on epidemiological models or population genetics stochastic models with constant population size. We propose a general stochastic eco-evolutionary model of population dynamics with horizontal and vertical transfers, inspired by the transfer of plasmids in bacteria. The transfer rates are either density-dependent (DD) or frequency-dependent (FD) or of Michaelis-Menten form (MM). Our model allows eco-evolutionary feedbacks. In the first part we present a two-traits (alleles or kinds of plasmids, etc.) model with horizontal transfer without mutation and study a large population limit. It's a ODEs system. We show that the phase diagrams are different in the (DD), (FD) and (MM) cases. We interpret the results for the impact of horizontal transfer on the maintenance of polymorphism and the invasion or elimination of pathogens strains. We also propose a diffusive approximation of adaptation with transfer. In a second part, we study the impact of the horizontal transfer on the evolution. We explain why it can drastically affect the evolutionary outcomes. Joint work with S. Billiard,P. Collet, R. Ferrière, C.V. Tran.[-]

Adaptive dynamics has shaped our understanding of evolution by demonstrating that, via the process of evolutionary branching, ecological interactions can promote diversification. The classical approach to study the adaptive dynamics of a system is to specify the ecological model including all trade-off functions and other functional relationships, and make predictions depending on the parameters of these functions. However, the choice of trade-offs and other functions is often the least well justified element of the model, and examples show that minor variations in these functions can lead to qualitative changes in the model predictions. In the first part of this talk, I shall revisit evolutionary branching and other evolutionary phenomena predicted by adaptive dynamics using an inverse approach: I investigate under which conditions a trade-off function exists that yields a given evolutionary outcome.
Evolutionary branching can amount to the birth of new species, but only if reproductive isolation evolves between the emerging branches. Recent studies show that mating is often assortative with respect to the very trait that is under ecological selection. Such "magic traits" can ensure reproductive isolation, yet they are by far not free tickets to speciation. In the second half of my talk, I discuss the consequences of sexual selection emerging from assortative mating, and show how a perfect female should search for mates.[-]

Maladapted individuals can only colonise a new habitat if they can evolve a positive growth rate fast enough to avoid extinction - evolutionary rescue. We use the infinitesimal model to follow the evolution of the growth rate, and find that the probability that a single migrant can establish depends on just two parameters: the mean and genetic variance of fitness. With continued migration, establishment is inevitable. However, above a threshold migration rate, the population may be trapped in a sink state, in which adaptation is held back by gene flow. By assuming a constant genetic variance, we develop a diffusion approximation for the joint distribution of population size and trait mean.[-]

A new type of a simple iterated game with natural biological motivation is introduced. Two individuals are chosen at random from a population. They must survive a certain number of steps. They start together, but if one of them dies the other one tries to survive on its own. The only payoff is to survive the game. We only allow two strategies: cooperators help the other individual, while defectors do not. There is no strategic complexity. There are no conditional strategies. Depending on the number of steps we recover various forms of stringent and relaxed cooperative dilemmas. We derive conditions for the evolution of cooperation.
Specifically, we describe an iterated game between two players, in which the payoff is to survive a number of steps. Expected payoffs are probabilities of survival. A key feature of the game is that individuals have to survive on their own if their partner dies. We consider individuals with simple, unconditional strategies. When both players are present, each step is a symmetric two-player game. As the number of iterations tends to infinity, all probabilities of survival decrease to zero. We obtain general, analytical results for n-step payoffs and use these to describe how the game changes as n increases. In order to predict changes in the frequency of a cooperative strategy over time, we embed the survival game in three different models of a large, well-mixed population. Two of these models are deterministic and one is stochastic. Offspring receive their parent's type without modification and fitnesses are determined by the game. Increasing the number of iterations changes the prospects for cooperation. All models become neutral in the limit $(n \rightarrow \infty)$. Further, if pairs of cooperative individuals survive together with high probability, specifically higher than for any other pair and for either type when it is alone, then cooperation becomes favored if the number of iterations is large enough. This holds regardless of the structure of pairwise interactions in a single step. Even if the single-step interaction is a Prisoner's Dilemma, the cooperative type becomes favored. Enhanced survival is crucial in these iterated evolutionary games: if players in pairs start the game with a fitness deficit relative to lone individuals, the prospects for cooperation can become even worse than in the case of a single-step game.[-]

A phylogenetic tree that has been reconstructed from a given gene can describe a different evolutionary history from its underlying species tree. The reasons for this include: error in inferring the gene tree, incomplete lineage sorting, lateral gene transfer, and the absence of the gene in certain species. In this talk, I discuss probabilistic models and mathematical results that help address basic questions concerning the consistency and efficiency of different methods for inferring a species phylogeny from gene trees.[-]

In this presentation, we shall discuss the reconstruction of demographic parameters based on the genetic variability observed within a sample of individual DNA. In the family of models that we consider, the statistics describing this genetic diversity (number of mutations, distribution of the mutations amongst individuals in the sample) depend on a more or less coarse ‘resolution of (i.e., level of information on) the hidden genealogical tree that relates the sampled individuals. Considering the optimal resolution thus allows to greatly improve the exploration of the space of possible genealogies when computing the likelihood of demographic parameters, compared to classical methods based on full labelled trees such as Kingmans coalescent. We shall focus on two examples, based on works with Raazesh Sainudiin (Uppsala Univ.) and with Julia Palacios (Stanford Univ.), Sohini Ramachandran (Brown Univ.) and John Wakeley (Harvard Univ.).[-]