Photography Contest IV: Winners

Posted 4 November 2012 by Matt Young

Congratulations to Lou Jost, who has won both the Lab Rats and General categories, with his photographs, Orchids and Volcan Tungurahua. On the theory that Mr. Jost does not need two copies of Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line, by Jason Rosenhouse, we declare James Kocher the third-place winner for his photograph Banded Iron Formation, in the Lab Rats category, and award Mr. Kocher the second copy of Mr. Rosenhouse's book.

3 Comments

loujost · 4 November 2012

Thanks very much Matt and voters!!! If anybody is curious to learn more about that crazy evolutionary radiation of Teagueia orchids in the neighborhood of Volcan Tungurahua, post here and I'll try to answer. I think this completely unexpected radiation indicates how much we still have to learn about the biodiversity of the Andes, and the failure of classical population genetics to correctly identify the factors leading to divergence in subdivided populations.

loujost · 5 November 2012

Considering the number of creationist commentators on this site, I better clarify that I don't mean to criticize pop genetics per se! I meant that in pop genetics, according to traditional beliefs, one migrant per generation is enough to tie two populations together at neutral loci, and since orchids have dust-like seeds that are excellent dispersers, nearby Teagueia populations would be expected to evolve as a single unit. My criticism of this "one-migrant-per-generation" rule is that it is based on bad math. The correct partitioning of genetic diversity into independent within- and between-group components is not additive (classical pop gen), and when the partitioning is done correctly, a different differentiation rule emerges: Genetic divergence will arise at neutral loci if and only if the ratio of RELATIVE migration rate to mutation rate is much less than 1. The absolute number of migrants has nothing to do with it (and this can be easily demonstrated in EASYPOP or other genetic modelling programs). See my article "Gst and its relatives do not measure differentiation", Molecular Ecology 17 (2008), p 4015-4026.

Dragoness · 5 November 2012

Congratulations!!!
TQ for including me in the final selection, it was quite the honor!!!