Date of Award
5-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Genetics
Committee Chair/Advisor
James J Lewis
Committee Member
Karin Van der Burg
Committee Member
Shyamalika Gopalan
Committee Member
Kelsey Witt Dillon
Abstract
Understanding the genetic composition of adaptive evolution is a longstanding and primary goal of evolutionary genetics. Despite many advances in our knowledge of trait adaptation, it remains unclear how demographic changes and repeated selection might alter the expected genetic architecture of adaptation. We used forward-in-time genetic simulations to test and observe the effects of opposing, repeated selection regimes on a polygenic trait in populations with and without changes in demography to better understand the genetic alleles that underlie polygenic adaptation. To further illuminate how natural populations might evolve, we investigated the impact of mutation effect size, the role of dominant/recessive alleles, and origin of adaptive alleles in our models of polygenic adaptation. Our results presented here provide a set of key, testable hypotheses for the genetic architecture of polygenic adaptation in natural populations with changing demographies or repeated selection pressures.
Recommended Citation
Hoskins, Marshall N., "Modeling Repeated Evolution of Polygenic Traits" (2026). All Theses. 4766.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4766