Genomics of Adaptation to Human Contexts

The pervasive and multifaceted effect of humans on other species is the prevalent story of biology in the 21st century. Human-driven selective pressures can have dramatic effects under remarkably short timescales (Hendry et al. 2017). In response, geneticists in traditionally disjunct fields from urban ecology to agriculture are using the same tools to ask related questions: How are species adapting to human contexts? What are the effects of human-imposed selection pressures? What sources of diversity fuel rapid evolution? Whether the system of interest is domesticated, invasive, or adapting to habitat alterations, genomic datasets hold the key for understanding rapid evolutionary shifts. These questions have spurred much recent scientific discussion (e.g., Molecular Ecology special issue April 2015: Invasion Genetics; Ecological Society of America conference 2016: Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene; PNAS special feature April 2014: The Modern View of Domestication, and more). To further this discussion, we hosted the "Genomics of Adaptation to Human Contexts" Symposium and Workshop (28–30 July 2016 at Colorado State University), supported by the American Genetics Association and the Genetics Society of America, to highlight exemplar research using large genomic datasets to investigate ecology and evolution in the Anthropocene.

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