Evolutionary genomics and ecology of macro- and microevolutionary transitions
Evolutionary Genomics
Our group is fascinated by the diversity and evolution of living organisms, populations and ecological systems. Our primary goal is to understand the basic principles underlying both macro- and microevolutionary changes using plants as model organisms. In particular, our interest extends over several fields of plant biology, including ecology, population genomics, molecular evolution, evo-devo, systematics and comparative genomics with special attention to basal groups of land plants. We combine field-based ecological and lab-based molecular/reverse genetic approaches including computationally intensive modeling and genome analysis to understand evolutionary processes both at the macro- and microevolutionary scales.
Recent Publications
- The hornworts: morphology, evolution and development
Frangedakis, Eftychios; Shimamura, Masaki; Villarreal, Juan Carlos; Li, Fay-Wei; Tomaselli, Marta; et al.
New Phytologist DOI: 10.1111/nph.16874 SEP 2020 - Evolutionary History of the Marchantia polymorpha Complex
Linde, Anna-Malin; Sawangproh, Weerachon; Cronberg, Nils; Szoevenyi, Peter; Lagercrantz, Ulf
Frontiers In Plant Science DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00829 JUN 26 2020 - Transcriptional Landscapes of Divergent Sporophyte Development in Two Mosses, Physcomitrium (Physcomitrella) patens and Funaria hygrometrica
Kirbis, Alexander; Waller, Manuel; Ricca, Mariana; Bont, Zoe; Neubauer, Anna; et al.
Frontiers In Plant Science DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00747 JUN 10 2020 - A pseudomolecule-scale genome assembly of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha
Diop, Seydina I.; Subotic, Oliver; Giraldo-Fonseca, Alejandro; Waller, Manuel; Kirbis, Alexander; et al.
Plant Journal DOI: 10.1111/tpj.14602 Published: MAR 2020 - Development and characterization of novel SSR markers in the endangered endemic species Ferula sadleriana
Malkocs, Tamas; Laczko, Levente; Bereczki, Judit; Meglecz, Emese; Szoevenyi, Peter; et al.
Applications In Plant Sciences 8(2) Special Issue, DOI: 10.1002/aps3.11321 FEB 2020 - Anthoceros genomes illuminate the origin of land plants and the unique biology of hornworts
Fay-Wei Li, Tomoaki Nishiyama, Manuel Waller, Eftychios Frangedakis, Jean Keller, Zheng Li, Noe Fernandez-Pozo, Michael S. Barker, Tom Bennett, Miguel A. Blázquez, Shifeng Cheng, Andrew C. Cuming, Jan de Vries, Sophie de Vries, Pierre-Marc Delaux, Issa S. Diop, C. Jill Harrison, Duncan Hauser, Jorge Hernández-García, Alexander Kirbis, John C. Meeks, Isabel Monte, Sumanth K. Mutte, Anna Neubauer, Dietmar Quandt, Tanner Robison, Masaki Shimamura, Stefan A. Rensing, Juan Carlos Villarreal, Dolf Weijers, Susann Wicke, Gane K.-S. Wong, Keiko Sakakibara & Péter Szövényi
Nature Plants. March 13, 2020. DOI: 10.1038/s41477-020-0618-2 - Towards a plant model for enigmatic U-to-C RNA editing: the organelle genomes, transcriptomes, editomes and candidate RNA editing factors in the hornwort Anthoceros agrestis
Gerke, Philipp; Szovenyi, Peter; Neubauer, Anna; Lenz, Henning; Gutmann, Bernard; et al.
New Phytologist, 10.1111/nph.16297 - Organellomic data sets confirm a cryptic consensus on (unrooted) land-plant relationships and provide new insights into bryophyte molecular evolution
Bell, David; Lin, Qianshi; Gerelle, Weslery K.; Joya, Steve; Chang, Ying; et al.
American Journal Of Botany, DOI: 10.1002/ajb2.1397 - One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants
Leebens-Mack, James H.; Barker, Michael S.; Carpenter, Eric J.; Deyholos, Michael K.; Gitzendanner, Matthew A.; et al.
Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1693-2 2019 - The lichen symbiosis re-viewed through the genomes of Cladonia grayi and its algal partner Asterochloris glomerata
Armaleo, D; Muller, O; Lutzoni, F; Andresson, OS; Blanc, G; Bode, HB; Collart, FR; Dal Grande, F; Dietrich, F; Grigoriev, IV; Joneson, S; Kuo, A; Larsen, PE; Logsdon, JM; Lopez, D; Martin, F; May, SP; McDonald, TR; Merchant, SS; Miao, V; Morin, E; Oono, R; Pellegrini, M; Rubinstein, N; Sanchez-Puerta, MV; Savelkoul, E; Schmitt, I; Slot, JC; Soanes, D; Szovenyi, P; Talbot, NJ; Veneault-Fourrey, C; Xavier, B
BMC GENOMICS, 20 10.1186/s12864-019-5629-x JUL 2019 - Evolution of the plant body plan
Szovenyi, P; Waller, M; Kirbis, A
PLANT DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION, 131 1-+; 10.1016/bs.ctdb.2018.11.005 2019 - CLAVATA Was a Genetic Novelty for the Morphological Innovation of 3D Growth in Land Plants
Whitewoods, CD; Cammarata, J; Venza, ZN; Sang, S; Crook, AD; Aoyama, T; Wang, XY; Waller, M; Kamisugi, Y; Cuming, AC; Szovenyi, P; Nimchuk, ZL; Roeder, AHK; Scanlon, MJ; Harrison, CJ
CURRENT BIOLOGY, 28 (15):2365-+; 10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.068 AUG 6 2018 - The Physcomitrella patens gene atlas project: large-scale RNA-seq based expression data
Perroud, PF; Haas, FB; Hiss, M; Ullrich, KK; Alboresi, A; Amirebrahimi, M; Barry, K; Bassi, R; Bonhomme, S; Chen, HD; Coates, JC; Fujita, T; Guyon-Debast, A; Lang, D; Lin, JY; Lipzen, A; Nogue, F; Oliver, MJ; de Leon, IP; Quatrano, RS; Rameau, C; Reiss, B; Reski, R; Ricca, M; Saidi, Y; Sun, N; Szovenyi, P; Sreedasyam, A; Grimwood, J; Stacey, G; Schmutz, J; Rensing, SA
PLANT JOURNAL, 95 (1):168-182; 10.1111/tpj.13940 JUL 2018 - The Sphagnome Project: enabling ecological and evolutionary insights through a genus-level sequencing project
Weston, David J.; Turetsky, Merritt R.; Johnson, Matthew G.; et al.
NEW PHYTOLOGIST, 217 (1): 16-25 JAN 2018 10.1111/nph.14860 - …

PD Dr. Peter Szövényi
University of Zurich
Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany
8008 Zurich
Tel: +41 (0)44 634 84 18
Research topics
- The evolution of life cycle transitions in plants
- The evolution of the land plant sporophyte
- The effect of ploidy on evolutionary processes
- Sex chromosome evolution and sex determination in haploid dioecy
- The genetics and epigenetics of inbreeding and outbreeding depression
- Genomic imprinting in plants lacking endosperm
Interdisciplinary
- Comparative evolutionary developmental biology
- Evolutionary genomics
- Adaptation to changing climate
- Evolutionary transcriptomics
- Breeding system evolution