Predictive adaptive responses in perspective (2008)
Gluckman, Peter D., Hanson, Mark A., Beedle, Alan S., Spencer, Hamish G.
Does space always matter in the origin of biological species (2007)
Winter, David J, Spencer, Hamish G
For the last 40 years one of the most contentious issues in evolutionary biology has been determining the role that spatial separation of populations plays in the generation of new species. Most...
The effect of spatial population structure on levels of genetic variation (2007)
Star, Bastiaan, Spencer, Hamish G
A vast amount of genetic variation is a striking hallmark of natural populations, and is vital to the adaptation and long-term survival of a species. Just why this variation is there, however, is...
Response to Wells: phenotypic responses to early environmental cues can be adaptive in adults (2006)
Predictive adaptive responses and human evolution (2005)
Gluckman, Peter D., Hanson, Mark A., Spencer, Hamish G.
The importance of a single genotype being able to produce different phenotypes in different environments (phenotypic plasticity) is widely recognized in evolutionary theory and its adaptive...
Kirsten M. Donald, Martyn Kennedy, Hamish G. Spencer
We used DNA sequences of lecithotrophic monodontine topshells, belonging to the genera Diloma, Melagraphia, and Austrocochlea, to ascertain how this group became established over a large area of the...
Gluckman, Peter D., Hanson, Mark A., Spencer, Hamish G., Bateson, Patrick
Early experience has a particularly great effect on most organisms. Normal development may be disrupted by early environmental influences; individuals that survive have to cope with the damaging...
Kennedy, Martyn, Holland, Barbara R., Gray, Russell D., Spencer, Hamish G.
Long-branch attraction is a well-known source of systematic error that can mislead phylogenetic methods; it is frequently invoked post hoc, upon recovering a different tree from the one expected...
Phylogeography of carnivorous snails from Northland (2004)
Spencer, Hamish G, Kennedy, Martyn
Landsnails of the subfamily Paryphantinae are active carnivores on earthworms and other snails. Most species are endemic to Northland, New Zealand, are several are of conservation concern, being...
Developmental plasticity and human health (2004)
Bateson, Patrick, Barker, David, Clutton-Brock, Timothy, Deb, Debal, D'Udine, Bruno, Foley, Robert A., ...
Many plants and animals are capable of developing in a variety of ways, forming characteristics that are well adapted to the environments in which they are likely to live. In adverse circumstances,...
The correlation between relatives on the supposition of genomic imprinting.
Standard genetic analyses assume that reciprocal heterozygotes are, on average, phenotypically identical. If a locus is subject to genomic imprinting, however, this assumption does not hold. We...
Weisstein, Anton E, Feldman, Marcus W, Spencer, Hamish G
At a small number of loci in eutherian mammals, only one of the two copies of a gene is expressed; the other is silenced. Such loci are said to be "imprinted," with some having the maternally...
Further properties of Gavrilets' one-locus two-allele model of maternal selection.
I derive several properties of the model proposed by Gavrilets for maternal selection at a single diallelic locus. Most notably, (i) stable oscillations of genotype frequencies (i.e., cycling) can...
The evolution of genomic imprinting via variance minimization: an evolutionary genetic model.
Weisstein, Anton E, Spencer, Hamish G
A small number of mammalian loci exhibit genomic imprinting, in which only one copy of a gene is expressed while the other is silenced. At some such loci, the maternally inherited allele is...
Spencer, Hamish G, Feldman, Marcus W, Clark, Andrew G, Weisstein, Anton E
We examine how genomic imprinting may have evolved at an X-linked locus, using six diallelic models of selection in which one allele is imprintable and the other is not. Selection pressures are...
Frequency-dependent selection with dominance: a window onto the behavior of the mean fitness.
Asmussen, Marjorie A, Cartwright, Reed A, Spencer, Hamish G
Selection in which fitnesses vary with the changing genetic composition of the population may facilitate the maintenance of genetic diversity in a wide range of organisms. Here, a detailed...
Influence of Mom and Dad: Quantitative Genetic Models for Maternal Effects and Genomic Imprinting
Santure, Anna W., Spencer, Hamish G.
The expression of an imprinted gene is dependent on the sex of the parent it was inherited from, and as a result reciprocal heterozygotes may display different phenotypes. In contrast, maternal...
Population Models of Genomic Imprinting. II. Maternal and Fertility Selection
Spencer, Hamish G., Dorn, Timothy, LoFaro, Thomas
Under several hypotheses for the evolutionary origin of imprinting, genes with maternal and reproductive effects are more likely to be imprinted. We thus investigate the effect of genomic imprinting...
The correlation between relatives on the supposition of genomic imprinting.
Standard genetic analyses assume that reciprocal heterozygotes are, on average, phenotypically identical. If a locus is subject to genomic imprinting, however, this assumption does not hold. We...
Weisstein, Anton E, Feldman, Marcus W, Spencer, Hamish G
At a small number of loci in eutherian mammals, only one of the two copies of a gene is expressed; the other is silenced. Such loci are said to be "imprinted," with some having the maternally...
Further properties of Gavrilets' one-locus two-allele model of maternal selection.
I derive several properties of the model proposed by Gavrilets for maternal selection at a single diallelic locus. Most notably, (i) stable oscillations of genotype frequencies (i.e., cycling) can...
The evolution of genomic imprinting via variance minimization: an evolutionary genetic model.
Weisstein, Anton E, Spencer, Hamish G
A small number of mammalian loci exhibit genomic imprinting, in which only one copy of a gene is expressed while the other is silenced. At some such loci, the maternally inherited allele is...
Spencer, Hamish G, Feldman, Marcus W, Clark, Andrew G, Weisstein, Anton E
We examine how genomic imprinting may have evolved at an X-linked locus, using six diallelic models of selection in which one allele is imprintable and the other is not. Selection pressures are...
Frequency-dependent selection with dominance: a window onto the behavior of the mean fitness.
Asmussen, Marjorie A, Cartwright, Reed A, Spencer, Hamish G
Selection in which fitnesses vary with the changing genetic composition of the population may facilitate the maintenance of genetic diversity in a wide range of organisms. Here, a detailed...
Influence of Mom and Dad: Quantitative Genetic Models for Maternal Effects and Genomic Imprinting
Santure, Anna W., Spencer, Hamish G.
The expression of an imprinted gene is dependent on the sex of the parent it was inherited from, and as a result reciprocal heterozygotes may display different phenotypes. In contrast, maternal...
Population Models of Genomic Imprinting. II. Maternal and Fertility Selection
Spencer, Hamish G., Dorn, Timothy, LoFaro, Thomas
Under several hypotheses for the evolutionary origin of imprinting, genes with maternal and reproductive effects are more likely to be imprinted. We thus investigate the effect of genomic imprinting...
Spencer, Hamish G., Clark, Andrew G.
A consequence of genomic imprinting is that offspring are more similar to one parent than to the other, depending on which parent's genes are inactivated in those offspring. We hypothesize that...
Gluckman, Peter D, Hanson, Mark A, Spencer, Hamish G, Bateson, Patrick
Early experience has a particularly great effect on most organisms. Normal development may be disrupted by early environmental influences; individuals that survive have to cope with the damaging...
Trotter, Meredith V., Spencer, Hamish G.
When individuals' fitnesses depend on the genetic composition of the population in which they are found, selection is then frequency dependent. Frequency-dependent selection (FDS) is often invoked as...
Single-Locus Polymorphism in a Heterogeneous Two-Deme Model
Star, Bastiaan, Stoffels, Rick J., Spencer, Hamish G.
Environmental heterogeneity has long been considered a likely explanation for the high levels of genetic variation found in most natural populations: selection in a spatially heterogeneous...
Star, Bastiaan, Stoffels, Rick J., Spencer, Hamish G.
The level of gene flow considerably influences the outcome of evolutionary processes in structured populations with spatial heterogeneity in selection pressures; low levels of gene flow may allow...
Stoffels, Rick J., Spencer, Hamish G.
We characterize the function of MHC molecules by the sets of pathogens that they recognize, which we call their “recognition sets.” Two features of the MHC–pathogen interaction may be important...
Evolution of Fitnesses in Structured Populations With Correlated Environments
Star, Bastiaan, Trotter, Meredith V., Spencer, Hamish G.
The outcome of selection in structured populations with spatially varying selection pressures depends on the interaction of two factors: the level of gene flow and the amount of heterogeneity among...
“It's Ok, We're Not Cousins by Blood”: The Cousin Marriage Controversy in Historical Perspective
Paul, Diane B, Spencer, Hamish G
Marriage between first cousins is highly stigmatized in the West and, indeed, is illegal in 31 US states. But is the hostility to such marriage scientifically well-grounded?
Trotter, Meredith V., Spencer, Hamish G.
Frequency-dependent selection remains the most commonly invoked heuristic explanation for the maintenance of genetic variation. For polymorphism to exist, new alleles must be both generated and...
Kelp genes reveal effects of subantarctic sea ice during the Last Glacial Maximum
Fraser, Ceridwen I., Nikula, Raisa, Spencer, Hamish G., Waters, Jonathan M.
The end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) dramatically reshaped temperate ecosystems, with many species moving poleward as temperatures rose and ice receded. Whereas reinvading terrestrial taxa...