Laurent Excoffier

Laurent Excoffier is interested in the development of computational methods to understand evolutionary processes at the population and species level. He has been studying the effect of complex demography on the molecular genetic diversity of a species, with the aim of designing better tests of selective neutrality. Recent work has also focused on the effect of spatial range expansion on non-neutral (functional) diversity, evidencing the buildup of a mutation load during range expansions due to inefficient purifying selection on wave fronts. He has also developed methods to detect individual loci or gene networks under selection. Laurent Excoffier is also involved in the development of statistical methods to reconstruct the past demography of a species from its genetic diversity, and to test among alternative evolutionary scenarios, with recent applications to humans and other primate species.