Recent advances in sequencing technology promise to provide new strategies for studying population differentiation and speciation phenomena in their earliest phases. We focus here on the black carrion crow ( Corvus [corone] corone ), which forms a zone of hybridization and overlap with the grey coated hooded crow ( Corvus [corone] cornix ). However, although these semispecies are taxonomically distinct, previous analyses based...

Improvements in sequencing technology over the past 5 years are leading to routine application of shotgun sequencing in the fields of ecology and evolution. However, the theory to estimate evolutionary parameters from these data is still being worked out. Here we present an extension and implementation of part of this theory, mlRho. This program can efficiently compute the following three maximum likelihood estimators based on...

Arabidopsis thaliana provides a useful model system for functional, evolutionary and ecological studies in plant biology. We have analysed natural genetic variation in A. thaliana in order to infer its biogeographical and historical distribution across Eurasia. We analysed 79 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers in 142 accessions from the species’ native range, and found highly significant genetic isolation by...