Populations must adapt to a varying environment, despite gene flow; such divergence necessarily generates barriers to gene flow, and so may lead to speciation. Funmi Olusanya is working with Himani Sachdeva and Jitka Polechová (Univ. Vienna) to understand how selection acts on quantitative traits in a metapopulation, and how this maintains diversity. Anja Westram is studying how distinct ecotypes repeatedly evolve in the marine snail Littorina saxatalis; she recently organised a special issue on the completion of speciation.
Recent papers
Barton, N.H., Etheridge, A.M.. 2018. Establishment in a new habitat by polygenic adaptation. Theoretical Population Biology
Pickup, M., Brandvain, Y., Fraisse, C., Yakimowski, S., Barton, N.H., Dixit, T., Lexer, C., Cereghetti, E., Field, D.. 2019. Mating system variation in hybrid zones: facilitation, barriers and asymmetries to gene flow. New Phytologist 224: 1035-1047. doi.org/10.1111/nph.16180
Sachdeva, H.. 2019. Effect of partial selfing and polygenic selection on establishment in a new habitat. Evolution.
Barton, N.H.. 2020. On the completion of speciation. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B 375: 20190530.
Szep, E., Sachdeva, H., Barton, N.H.. 2020 Polygenic local adaptation in metapopulations: a stochastic eco-evolutionary model. bioRxiv
Kulmuni, J., Butlin, R.K., Lucek, K., Savolainen, V., Westram, A.M.. 2020. Towards the completion of speciation: the evolution of further reproductive isolation once the first barriers are in place. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Perini, S., Rafajlović, M., Westram, A.M., Johanneson, K., Butlin, R.K.. 2020. Assortative mating, sexual selection and their consequences for gene flow in Littorina. Evolution.
Stankowski, S., Westram, A.M., Zagrodzka, Z., Eyres, I., Broquet, T., Johannesson, K., Butlin, R.K.. 2020. The evolution of strong reproductive isolation between sympatric intertidal snails. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Fraisse, C., Sachdeva, H.. 2020. The rates of introgression and barriers to genetic exchange between hybridizing species: sex chromosomes vs. autosomes. bioRxiv
Westram, A.M., Stankowski, S., Surendranadh, P., Barton, N.H. 2022. Understanding reproductive isolation. J. Evol. Biol. (in press)