A Steak in Genomics™

My advisor, Jerry Taylor, and I recently developed and published in BMC Genomics a new method to identify ongoing selection on complex or quantitative traits ( A novel analytical method, Birth Date Selection Mapping, detects response of the Angus ( Bos taurus ) genome to selection on complex traits ). Previous methods identify selection which has reached completion (or nearly reach completion) on novel mutations affecting Mendelian traits. A well known example of this type of selection is the adaptation of human populations to digest milk as adults . But, these sweeping selection events are the exception. Blue lines represent hypothetical variants that are drifting randomly through a population with an effective size of 100.  Red lines represent hypothetical variants that are under strong selection. Drifting variants are not associated with birth date. Selected variants change in frequency over time and are strong predictors of birth date. We utilize this fact to identify selected