Population Biology and Genetics

Populations and communities, ecological conditions and resources. Basic demographic parameters and demographic structure; life tables; intrinsic rate of growth; forms of growth, density-dependent and density-independent regulation of a population and carrying capacity. Strategies r and K. Distribution of individuals and dispersion. Ecological niche concept: multidimensional niche and its breadth; overlap between niches of coexisting populations. Ecological interactions between species populations: competition and competitive exclusion, predation, parasitism. Population viability.
Genetic variation and its origins: mutation, recombination transposition. Analysis of genetic variability. Systems to measure genetic variability: 'traditional' and modern genetic markers. Gene structure of a population. Hardy Weinberg's model, calculation of gene frequencies, balance test. Gene structure of characters related to sex. Linkage disequilibrium. Study of the dynamics of the populations. Natural selection and its effects on gene frequencies. Selection on quantitative traits. Forms of selection: directional or stabilizing, frequency-dependent, variable in space or time. Individual fitness and overall fitness. Random genetic drift and its consequences on gene frequency dynamics. Bottleneck and founder effect. Effective size of a population, its estimation and importance. Identification of factors that can modify the effective population size. Estimation of genetic distances and population structuring. Effect of gene mutations and migration. Balance between mutation and selection.