Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics Workshop 2025

Workshop Description

The workshop will teach evolutionary frameworks for studying trait evolution from micro to macroevolutionary scales. We will cover the basics of theory in the field of evolutionary quantitative genetics in microevolutionary studies before transitioning to teaching phylogenetic comparative methods for studying trait evolution over macroevolutionary scales. Our primary aims are to build bridges between the traditionally separate disciplines of quantitative genetics and comparative methods, contextualize each others research in the outstanding questions across scales, and learn cutting edge computational methods of analysis.

Quantitative genetic theory for natural populations was developed considerably in the period from 1970 up to the present, and it has been applied to a wide range of phenomena including the evolution of life history traits, plasticity of traits, mating preferences, as well as the evolution of body size and other morphological measurements. Phylogenetic approaches to comparative biology were developed from the 1980s on, including inferring how traits covary in evolution and how optimum values of traits vary between species. Textbooks have been slow to cover these developments, and currently few universities offer courses on these subjects aimed at evolutionary biologists.

Evolutionary biologists need to understand this field because of the ability to collect large amounts of data, the development of statistical methods for changes of traits on evolutionary trees and for changes in a single species through time, and the realization that quantitative characters will not soon be fully explained by genomics. This workshop aims to fill this need by reviewing basic aspects of theory and illustrating how that theory can be tested with data, both from single species and from multiple-species phylogenies. Participants will receive hands on experience with methods and datasets to build and test evolutionary models, primarily using R, an open-source statistical programming language.

Please note carefully that this is not a workshop on numerical, statistical, or computational methods for reconstructing phylogenies, nor does it cover molecular genomics. This workshop will be primarily of interest to those studying trait evolution and interested in how their work and the work of others connects across scales.

The workshop involves lectures, discussions and in-class computer exercises. The site you are on right now has a schedule of lectures, computer labs, and discussions. It also has pages for each of these sessions, containing lecture projections, notes, and computer exercises. *Currently these are mostly the materials for 2022 and will be updated as we approach the 2025 workshop.* You can consult past workshops pages at the links below.

Workshop History

This workshop has been given yearly since 2011-2019 and virtually in 2021-2022 under the leadership of Joe Felsenstein and Stevan J Arnold. Steve and Joe have had to take a step back in organizing the workshop, but we will rely heavily on the groundwork they have built for this course. In addition, Dr. Felsenstein will join us virtually for part of the workshop and students will have an opportunity to talk with him virtually. This workshop was initially held at NESCENT in Durham, NC; NiMBIOS in Knoxville, TN, and most recently in Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island in Washington. We are bringing back this years’ workshop to be held at scenic Mountain Lake Biological Station in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. Lead instructor Josef Uyeda initially TA’d this workshop as a graduate student, before transitioning to a full instructor, and has been present at every iteration of the workshop except one.

Here are links to previous years’ workshops, with pages for the individual lectures, including lecture projections, audio recordings, and files for computer exercises.

• 2022 Workshop
• 2021 Workshop