Directional genetic differentiation and asymmetric migration

Understanding the population structure and patterns of gene flow within species is of fundamental importance to the study of evolution. In the fields of population and evolutionary genetics, measures of genetic differentiation are commonly used to gather this information. One potential caveat is that these measures assume gene flow to be symmetric. However, asymmetric gene flow is common in nature, especially in systems driven by physical processes such as wind or water currents. Since information about levels of asymmetric gene flow among populations is essential for the correct interpretation of the distribution of contemporary genetic diversity within species, this should not be overlooked. To obtain information on asymmetric migration patterns from genetic data, complex models based on maximum likelihood or Bayesian approaches generally need to be employed, often at great computational cost. Here, a new simpler and more efficient approach for understanding gene flow patterns is presented. This approach allows the estimation of directional components of genetic divergence between pairs of populations at low computational effort, using any of the classical or modern measures of genetic differentiation. These directional measures of genetic differentiation can further be used to calculate directional relative migration and to detect asymmetries in gene flow patterns. This can be done in a user-friendly web application called divMigrate-online introduced in this paper. Using simulated data sets with known gene flow regimes, we demonstrate that the method is capable of resolving complex migration patterns under a range of study designs.Comment: 25 pages, 8 (+3) figures, 1 tabl

A genome-wide investigation of the worldwide invader Sargassum muticum shows high success albeit (almost) no genetic diversity

Twenty years of genetic studies of marine invaders have shown that successful invaders are often characterized by native and introduced populations displaying similar levels of genetic diversity. This pattern is presumably due to high propagule pressure and repeated introductions. The opposite pattern is reported in this study of the brown seaweed, Sargassum muticum, an emblematic species for circumglobal invasions. Albeit demonstrating polymorphism in the native range, microsatellites failed to detect any genetic variation over 1,269 individuals sampled from 46 locations over the Pacific-Atlantic introduction range. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) obtained from ddRAD sequencing revealed some genetic variation, but confirmed severe founder events in both the Pacific and Atlantic introduction ranges. Our study thus exemplifies the need for extreme caution in interpreting neutral genetic diversity as a proxy for invasive potential. Our results confirm a previously hypothesized transoceanic secondary introduction from NE Pacific to Europe. However, the SNP panel unexpectedly revealed two additional distinct genetic origins of introductions. Also, conversely to scenarios based on historical records, southern rather than northern NE Pacific populations could have seeded most of the European populations. Finally, the most recently introduced populations showed the lowest selfing rates, suggesting higher levels of recombination might be beneficial at the early stage of the introduction process (i.e., facilitating evolutionary novelties), whereas uniparental reproduction might be favored later in sustainably established populations (i.e., sustaining local adaptation).Agence Nationale de la Recherche - ANR-10-BTBR-04; European Regional Development Fund; Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia - SFRH/BPD/107878/2015, UID/Multi/04326/2016, UID/Multi/04326/2019; Brittany Region;info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The extractive infrastructures of contact tracing apps

The COVID-19 pandemic will go down in history as a major crisis, with calls for debt moratoriums that are expected to have gruesome effects in the Global South. Another tale of this crisis that would come to dominate COVID-19 news across the world was a new technological application: the contact tracing apps. In this article, we argue that both accounts ‐ economic implications for the Global South and the ideology of techno-solutionism ‐ are closely related. We map the phenomenon of the tracing app onto past and present wealth accumulations. To understand these exploitative realities, we focus on the implications of contact tracing apps and their relation with extractive technologies as we build on the notion racial capitalism. By presenting themselves in isolation of capitalism and extractivism, contact tracing apps hide raw realities, concealing the supply chains that allow the production of these technologies and the exploitative conditions of labour that make their computational magic manifest itself. As a result of this artificial separation, the technological solutionism of contract tracing apps is ultimately presented as a moral choice between life and death. We regard our work as requiring continuous undoing ‐ a necessary but unfinished formal dismantling of colonial structures through decolonial resistance

Optically-induced lensing effect on a Bose-Einstein condensate expanding in a moving lattice

We report the experimental observation of a lensing effect on a Bose-Einstein condensate expanding in a moving 1D optical lattice. The effect of the periodic potential can be described by an effective mass dependent on the condensate quasi-momentum. By changing the velocity of the atoms in the frame of the optical lattice we induce a focusing of the condensate along the lattice direction. The experimental results are compared with the numerical predictions of an effective 1D theoretical model. Besides, a precise band spectroscopy of the system is carried out by looking at the real-space propagation of the atomic wavepacket in the optical lattice.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; minor changes applied and typos corrected; a new paragraph added; some references updated; journal reference adde

About multiplicities and applications to Bezout numbers

Let $(A,\mathfrak{m},\Bbbk)$ denote a local Noetherian ring and $\mathfrak{q}$ an ideal such that $\ell_A(M/\mathfrak{q}M) < \infty$ for a finitely generated $A$-module $M$. Let \au = a_1,\ldots,a_d denote a system of parameters of $M$ such that $a_i \in \mathfrak{q}^{c_i} \setminus \mathfrak{q}^{c_i+1}$ for $i=1,\ldots,d$. It follows that \chi := e_0(\au;M) - c \cdot e_0(\mathfrak{q};M) \geq 0, where $c = c_1\cdot \ldots \cdot c_d$. The main results of the report are a discussion when $\chi = 0$ resp. to describe the value of $\chi$ in some particular cases. Applications concern results on the multiplicity e_0(\au;M) and applications to Bezout numbers.Comment: 11 pages, to appear Springer INdAM-Series, Vol. 20 (2017

Safety, the Preface Paradox and Possible Worlds Semantics

This paper contains an argument to the effect that possible worlds semantics renders semantic knowledge impossible, no matter what ontological interpretation is given to possible worlds. The essential contention made is that possible worlds semantic knowledge is unsafe and this is shown by a parallel with the preface paradox

Double-impulse magnetic focusing of launched cold atoms.

We have theoretically investigated three-dimensional focusing of a launched cloud of cold atoms using a pair of magnetic lens pulses (the alternate-gradient method). Individual lenses focus radially and defocus axially or vice versa. The performance of the two possible pulse sequences are compared and found to be ideal for loading both 'pancake' and 'sausage' shaped magnetic/optical microtraps. It is shown that focusing aberrations are considerably smaller for double-impulse magnetic lenses compared to single-impulse magnetic lenses. An analysis of clouds focused by the double-impulse technique is presented