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Daniel Zivkovic

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Zivkovic.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

The Fisher-Wright model with deterministic seed bank and selection

Seed banks are a common characteristics to many plant species, which allow storage of genetic diversity in the soil as dormant seeds for various periods of time. We investigate an above-ground population following a Fisher-Wright model with selection coupled with a deterministic seed bank assuming the length of the seed bank is kept constant and the number of seeds is large. To assess the combined impact of seed banks and selection on genetic diversity, we derive a general diffusion model. We compute the equilibrium solution of the site-frequency spectrum and derive the times to fixation of an allele with and without selection. Finally, it is demonstrated that seed banks enhance the effect of selection onto the site-frequency spectrum while slowing down the time until the mutation-selection equilibrium is reached.

Evolutionary Biology

Transition densities and sample frequency spectra of diffusion processes with selection and variable population size

Advances in empirical population genetics have made apparent the need for models that simultaneously account for selection and demography. To address this need, we here study the Wright-Fisher diffusion under selection and variable effective population size. In the case of genic selection and piecewise-constant effective population sizes, we obtain the transition density function by extending a recently developed method for computing an accurate spectral representation for a constant population size. Utilizing this extension, we show how to compute the sample frequency spectrum (SFS) in the presence of genic selection and an arbitrary number of instantaneous changes in the effective population size. We also develop an alternate, efficient algorithm for computing the SFS using a method of moments. We apply these methods to answer the following questions: If neutrality is incorrectly assumed when there is selection, what effects does it have on demographic parameter estimation? Can the impact of negative selection be observed in populations that undergo strong exponential growth?

Genetics