CNCS Seminar
Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 3:00pm, 119 Physics
Marija Vucelja (Dept of Physics, University of Virginia)
A glass transition in population genetics: Emergence of clones in populations
Abstract:- The fields of evolution and population genetics are undergoing a
renaissance, due to the abundance of sequencing data. On the other hand, the
existing theories are often unable to explain the experimental findings. It
is not clear what sets the time scales of evolution, whether for antibiotic
resistance, an emergence of new animal species, or the diversification of
life. The emerging picture of genetic evolution is that of a strongly
interacting stochastic system with large numbers of components far from
equilibrium. In this talk, I plan to focus on the clone competition and
discuss the diversity of a random population that undergoes selection and
recombination (sexual reproduction). Recombination reshuffles genetic
material while selection amplifies the fittest genotypes. If recombination
is more rapid than selection, a population consists of a diverse mixture of
many genotypes, as is observed in many populations. In the opposite regime,
selection can amplify individual genotypes into large clones, and the
population reaches the so-called "clonal condensation". I hope to convince
you that our work provides a qualitative explanation of clonal condensation.
I will point out the similarity between clonal condensation and the freezing
transition in the Random Energy Model of spin glasses. I will conclude with
a summary of our present understanding of the clonal condensation phenomena
and describe future directions and connections to statistical physics. [video]
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