Evolutionary Biology

I am a research associate at IISER Pune who is fascinated by the interactions of mutation, drift, and selection in organismal populations. I am particularly captivated by the complexity that underlies the process of adaptation in seemingly simple asexual systems.
In my current research, I use combinations of bacterial experimental evolution, population-wide genomics, and agent-based simulations to study the following:
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The effects of population size on adaptation and fitness trade-offs
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The population genetics of divergent character evolution in identical environments
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Why costs of adaptation, which are a major assumption of theoretical evolutionary models, are rarely detected in experiments.
Peer-reviewed publications
1. Chavhan, Y., Malusare, S. & Dey, S.
Larger bacterial populations evolve heavier fitness trade-offs and undergo greater ecological specialization.
Heredity 124, 726–736 (2020)
Full text | Companion article
2. Chavhan, Y., Karve, S. & Dey, S.
Adapting in larger numbers can increase the vulnerability of Escherichia coli populations to environmental changes.
Evolution 73, 836–846 (2019)
3. Chavhan, Y., Ali, S. I. & Dey, S.
Larger numbers can impede adaptation in asexual populations despite entailing greater genetic variation.
Evolutionary Biology 46, 1–13 (2019)
Full-text
4. Karve, S., Daniel, S., Chavhan Y., Anand, A., Kharola, S.S. & Dey, S.
Escherichia coli populations in unpredictably fluctuating environments evolve to face novel stresses through enhanced efflux activity.
Journal of Evolutionary Biology 28, 1131–1143 (2015)
Full-text
PhD Thesis
The Effects of Population Size on Adaptation and Trade-offs: Insights from Experimental Evolution with Escherichia coli and Individual-based Models
Full-text
(Defended on September 6, 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Sutirth Dey at IISER Pune)
The May 2020 Heredity Podcast featuring my recent work
My talk at the Indo-Swiss Meeting on Evolutionary Biology (Dec 2019)