Probability and population genetics

par Julio Nava (Humboldt Universität / IMT)

jeudi 15 janv. 2026, 14:00 → 16:00 Europe/Paris

Johson (1R3)

In this talk, we take a tour through one of the foundational models of population genetics: the Wright–Fisher graph. We explore its biological origins and explain how, despite its apparent simplicity, it encodes a wide range of ecological and genealogical phenomena. We highlight how probability theory provides a natural language to describe biological randomness, and how different biological stories can emerge from the same mathematical framework. We also discuss where the model falls short: which assumptions are biologically unrealistic, and why they nevertheless remain useful starting points. Finally, we look beyond the classical setting and sketch how relaxing some of these assumptions leads to more realistic models that lie at the frontier of current research in probability and population genetics.