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Principles of Population Genetics
Book by Daniel L .Hartl
488 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 16, 2013
This is hard to rate, because I don't enjoy textbooks the way I enjoy fiction. However, this book got me through my preliminary examinations to become a PhD candidate. It is one of the best, most thorough, and most understandable genetics textbooks I've read. It's a must for students and other researchers in the field of population genetics. The newer editions even have chapters on population genomics and human genetics. This is an incredibly useful text!
May 16, 2012
A useful reference with clear explanations. It was the recommended textbook for my population genetics class, but I only cracked it open once or twice for that. I will probably revisit it for my own entertainment/learning purposes sometime in the near future.
January 1, 2018
An easy population genetics companion. Clear, structured and relevant.
December 22, 2017
Meh. All right. Doesn't stand out much.Regular boring textbook. But it was decent.
November 2, 2019
Very nice book for those who have some knowledge on Gentetics or Biology and want to dive on Population Genetics.
January 24, 2016
This is THE population genetics textbook, the source text. And thus I have no intention of reading it cover to cover. Contains 9 chapters with empirical examples using real data and practice problems—the theoretical nature of population genetics can be quite mathy so grounding models of inference with actual data is helpful. By no means a concise text, and not an introductory text either, in my opinion. There is a fourth edition (2006), which I imagine incorporates analysis tools to handle genomic data (the -omics are moving too fast, so to get a handle on them look outside textbooks to recent literature reviews). I selfishly picked through chapters covering my interests and/or knowledge gaps, for there were many. I think it took about six months to get through 5 chapters.
I spent a good deal of time on the quantitative genetics chapter, mainly because “problems in evolutionary biology begin with observations of phenotypic variation.” This final, cumulative chapter takes an evolutionary perspective instead of the field's original application to the artificial selection of plant and animal breeding. I appreciated the word space dedicated to the paradox of genotype and phenotype differentiation and rates of evolution--think polygenic, multifactorial traits and environmental covariance, which (hint, hint) are not well understood. The definitive quantitative genetics text is Falconer’s and Mackay’s “Qunatitative Genetics,” which is on my reading list, near the bottom.
I don’t have much substantive to add other than the smartest way to engage with evolutionary biology is to understand the fundamentals of the genetic basis of evolution, in a name: population genetics...a necessarily theoretical field, but for all my complaining about formalism, being at least familiar with it parameterizes the space within which speculation can informatively roam.
Sitting on my shelf, unread, is Population Genetics: A Concise Guide, 2nd edition by Gillespie. The title suggests it may be better for those looking for a more foundational approach.
I spent a good deal of time on the quantitative genetics chapter, mainly because “problems in evolutionary biology begin with observations of phenotypic variation.” This final, cumulative chapter takes an evolutionary perspective instead of the field's original application to the artificial selection of plant and animal breeding. I appreciated the word space dedicated to the paradox of genotype and phenotype differentiation and rates of evolution--think polygenic, multifactorial traits and environmental covariance, which (hint, hint) are not well understood. The definitive quantitative genetics text is Falconer’s and Mackay’s “Qunatitative Genetics,” which is on my reading list, near the bottom.
I don’t have much substantive to add other than the smartest way to engage with evolutionary biology is to understand the fundamentals of the genetic basis of evolution, in a name: population genetics...a necessarily theoretical field, but for all my complaining about formalism, being at least familiar with it parameterizes the space within which speculation can informatively roam.
Sitting on my shelf, unread, is Population Genetics: A Concise Guide, 2nd edition by Gillespie. The title suggests it may be better for those looking for a more foundational approach.
August 28, 2012
I wish I had the background needed to read and review this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews