Mark Juers

I am a graduate student in the lab of Michael J. Wade. Broadly speaking, I study the population genetic consequences of organisms interacting with each other and their environments, and am currently researching the maintenance of mitochondrial variation within and between populations. Evolution is the story of individuals writ large. A population's evolutionary success depends entirely on what it is, what it can become in the future, and what it experiences. I am drawn to its study because this evokes our own experience: what we are and what we can be become is enabled and constrained by what we have seen and how we chose to grow from it.

Entries by Mark Juers

Heritability: what it means and why it’s important

Posted April 11, 2017 by Mark Juers

In a previous post, I briefly discussed something called genetic correlation and how this might be important for the evolution of a trait. Now, I hope to further clarify that concept and add to that a discussion of a very important concept in evolutionary biology—heritability—and tie it back to my initial discussion of the evolution… Read more »

Proactively combating the continuing threat of pesticide resistance

Posted November 8, 2016 by Mark Juers

Consider briefly the process of evolution and you might imagine a lumbering process, splitting lineages and bringing new species forth from old, or the gradual formation of morphological novelties like wings. While it’s true that evolutionary processes such as the formation of new species are generally slow by our standards, other effects of evolution that… Read more »

Adaptation and the importance of hybrids

Posted August 24, 2016 by Mark Juers

How do species adapt to new conditions? For a couple hundred years, the answer has been that incremental change in parents trickles down to offspring over generations in a population, giving us the process of biological evolution. That is just as true as ever, but it appears to be a bit more complicated. Where once… Read more »