Experimental evolution is an emerging field of
evolutionary biology in which populations of microbes
(bacteria, viruses, fungi) are propagated in the lab for
thousands of generations and adaptive events are monitored
in phenotypic and genotypic detail. In this talk
I will review recent efforts at modeling such experiments,
based on the classic Wright-Fisher model of population
genetics. The talk will focus in particular on the
phenomenon of clonal interference, the competition between
different beneficial mutations that is believed to
slow down the adaptation of asexual populations and hence to
contribute to the evolutionary advantage of sex [1].
1. S.C. Park, J. Krug, PNAS 104, 18135 (2007)
