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Organizers
College of Life Sciences, Peking University
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CAS
State Key Laboratory
of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, CAS
Sponsors
Peking University
The 111 Project
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Higher Education Press
Constraints on Multivariate Evolution
University of Arizona, USA
Abstract
Evolution is inherently a multivariate process, with a complex suite of traits is the focus of natural selection. While virtually every trait shows heritable variation (and hence the potential to respond to selection), evolutionary stasis is not uncommon. We review recent laboratory evidence that suggests that while individual traits may indeed show heritable variation, there is often very little variation along the multivariate direction favored by natural selection. We suggest that such multivariate constraints are common and indeed the wealth of heritable variation in just about any trait can be viewed as a direct consequence of such multivariate constraints.
Bruce Walsh
University of Arizona, USA
Biography
Bruce Walsh is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. He is also an adjunct Professor of Plant Sciences, Animal Sciences, and Molecular and Cellular Biology and is a Professor in the College of Public Health. His interests include quantitative genetics, genome evolution, and mathematical and statistical analysis of evolutionary processes. Dr. Walsh is also an avid field biologist and recently has had two new species of Arizona moths named after him.