Call for abstracts for the symposium on "The maintenance of adaptive
polymorphisms" (Symposium S48) at ESEB 2025, taking place from 17-22
August in Barcelona, Spain.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE 25th April 2025
https://eseb2025.com/call-for-abstracts/

In the face of decades of work, the maintenance of heritable
variation for fitness remains an unresolved question in population
genetics. Natural populations often display much more fitness variance
than mutation-selection balance or single-locus heterozygote advantage
alone can account for. To explain this surplus variance, alternative
processes, such as negative frequency-dependent selection, multi-locus
balancing selection, spatially or temporally varying selection,
antagonistic selection, or genotype-by-environment interactions, have
been invoked, yet fundamental questions about the role of these mechanisms
in maintaining polymorphism remain open.

Despite growing theoretical and empirical interest, we still lack a
comprehensive understanding of such "non-classical" forms of balancing
selection and their relative contributions to the maintenance of
genetic variance. This symposium aims to spotlight emerging examples
of non-classical balancing selection and to address key outstanding
questions: (1) How prevalent are these processes in natural populations,
and how frequently do they interact? (2) Do they produce distinct
population genetic signatures? Can we disentangle such signatures in
genomic data? Alternatively, can we devise experiments to identify the
type of balancing selection at play?

To foster a discussion of these fundamental issues, our symposium aims
to bring together theoreticians and empiricists studying a variety of
processes and systems that result in balanced polymorphisms. We welcome
contributions from researchers at any career stage.

Invited Speakers
Meike Wittmann, Bielefeld University. Bielefeld. Germany
Karl Grieshop, University of East Anglia. Norwich. England

Organizers
Dr. Hannah Augustijnen, University of Fribourg. Fribourg. Switzerland.
Dr. Harshavardhan Thyagarajan, University of
Fribourg. Fribourg. Switzerland.

Best regards,

Hannah Augustijnen
Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Biology
University of Fribourg
Switzerland

Hannah.augustijnen@unifr.ch

AUGUSTIJNEN Hannah <hannah.augustijnen@unifr.ch>

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