Shared Modules for the UPRM Bioinformatics Resources Core Development Group of the Puerto Rico IDeA Networks for Biomedical Research Excellence

This course covers the ecological and genetic core of evolutionary biology using prokaryote, plant, animal and human examples. It discusses the maintenance of genetic variability, the rôle of chance in evolution, the origins of species and theories of evolution beyond the species level. The usefulness of evolutionary biology in disease and pest control, and in conservation also plays a part. Lecture topics include the effects of mutation, drift and selection (including directional, stabilizing, disruptive and kin selection), sexual selection, molecular evolution, mimicry, chromosomal evolution, spatial evolution, evolution of species, and evolution beyond the species level.

This course discusses the principles of genetics with application to the study of biological function at the level of molecules, cells, and multicellular organisms, including humans. The topics include: structure and function of genes, chromosomes and genomes, biological variation resulting from recombination, mutation, and selection, population genetics, use of genetic methods to analyze protein function, gene regulation and inherited disease.

Evolutionary genetics uses patterns of genetic differences between individuals and between species to make inferences about the past. Human evolutionary genetics can help to explain the distribution and frequencies of different phenotypes and diseases in humans today. Information on human evolution from genetic studies placed in the context of information from other scientific disciplines, including archaeology and linguistics, provides a synthetic view on our past. 


Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and population structure.  What sets population genetics apart today from newer, more phenotypic approaches to modelling evolution, such as evolutionary game theory and adaptive dynamics, is its emphasis on genetic phenomena as dominance, epistasis, and the degree to which genetic recombination breaks up linkage disequilibrium. This makes it appropriate for comparison to population genomics data.