Research Abstract:
I apply molecular and population genetics to problems in evolutionary and conservation biology and in human genetics. Because many genes have a known function, loci can be identified that may influence a trait of interest. I use candidate loci to study natural selection in various species and to examine the role of genes in coronary artery disease in humans. High levels of molecular variation at candidate loci make it difficult to identify the few mutations associated with significant phenotypic effects. To solve this problem, I construct an evolutionary tree of the genetic variation at a candidate locus and use this tree to define statistical analyses. Functionally important mutations are imbedded in the evolutionary history of this genetic variation, and therefore phenotypic effects should be non-randomly distributed over the tree. This tree approach is more powerful than approaches that ignore evolutionary history. I am now developing new evolutionary techniques to detect epistasis between candidate loci in influencing risk to common diseases.
I have extended this evolutionary tree approach to separate the effects of current population structure from past events that occurred in the history of a species, such as fragmentation events and geographical range changes. Such analyses have provided much insight into recent human evolution and also provide a rigorous manner to identify species and aid in designing and monitoring conservation programs for endangered species. Among those programs, I am studying the impact of forest fire management upon the demography and genetics of Ozark populations of the collared lizard. |
Selected Publications:
Östman Ö, Griffin NW, Strasburg JL, Brisson JA, Templeton AR, Knight TM, Chase JM. Habitat area affects arthropod communities directly and indirectly through top predators. Ecography 2007 30:359-366.
Templeton, AR. Genetics and recent human evolution. Evolution 2007 61:1507-1519.
Templeton AR. Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2006.
Brisson, JA., De Toni DC, Duncan I, Templeton AR. Abdominal pigmentation variation in Drosophila polymorpha: Geographic variation in the trait, and underlying phylogeography. Evolution 2005 59:1046-1059.
Templeton AR, Maxwell T, Posada D, Stengard JH, Boerwinkle E, Sing CF. Tree scanning: A method for using haplotype trees in genotype/phenotype association studies. Genetics 2005 169:441-453. |