Research Interests:

The major goal of my research is to understand the role of population subdivision in structuring genetic variation within and between populations, and to use this knowledge to develop new research tools. Two themes have dominated this work. The first is an attempt to provide a framework for model selection and hypothesis testing using genetic data. This work is particularly focused on the development of tools which empirical population geneticists can use to distinguish among alternative hypotheses about the demographic history of their study organisms. The second concerns the adequacy of currently-available models of population subdivision. Here the aim is to formulate and to study new models which better reflect biological reality, but which are tractable enough to promote understanding and to be useful.

Recently, I have concentrated mostly on this second area. Foremost in this development of new models and approaches is the large-number-of-demes result. I found (Wakeley, 1998) that a simple genealogical process exists for Wright's (1931) island model of population subdivision when the number of demes, or subpopulations, is large. This result holds for a variety of subdivided population models. I have also applied the model, e.g. using it as the basis for ancestral inference in humans. Wakeley (2001) extends the result to a general version of Wright's (1931) island model which includes variation in deme sizes, in migration rates, and in relative contributions to the migrant pool. Wakeley and Aliacar (2001) shows that a slightly modified form of the result holds when, in addition to migration, demes are subject to extinction and subsequent recolonization. Wakeley (2000) describes the pattern of genetic divergence between two species each of which conformed to this subdivided population model. Wakeley (1999) and Wakeley et al. (2001) are applications of a modified version of the model, which includes a change in the rates or patterns of migration at some time in the past, to human genetic polymorphism data.

Selected Publications:

Wakeley, J., (1998) Segregating sites in Wright's island model. Theoret. Pop. Biol. 53:166-174.

Wakeley, J., (1999) Nonequilibrium migration in human history. Genetics 153:1863-1871.

Wakeley, J., (2000) The effects of subdivision on the genetic divergence of populations and species. Evolution 54:1092-1101.

Wakeley, J., (2001) The coalescent in an island model of population subdivision with variation among demes. Theoret. Pop. Biol. 59:133-144.

Wakeley, J., and N. Aliacar (2001) The gene genealogies in a metapopulation. Genetics (submitted)

Wakeley, J., R. Nielsen, K. Ardlie, S. N. Liu-Cordero, and E. S. Lander, (2001) The discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms and inferences about human demographic history. Am. J. Hum Genet. (submitted)

Wright, S., (1931) Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics 16:97-159.