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.

• 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
• How Do Cold-Adapted Plants Respond to Climatic Cycles? Interglacial Expansion Explains Current Distribution and Genomic Diversity in Primula farinosa L. 
  Theodoridis, Spyros; Randin, Christophe; Szovenyi, Peter; et al. 
  SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY, 66 (5): 715-736, 10.1093/sysbio/syw114  SEP 2017
• Selfing in Haploid Plants and Efficacy of Selection: Codon Usage Bias in the Model Moss Physcomitrella patens 
  Szovenyi, Peter; Ullrich, Kristian K.; Rensing, Stefan A.; et al. 
  GENOME BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION, 9 (6): 1528-1546 JUN 2017 Article (Details)
• Divergent evolution and niche differentiation within the common peatmoss Sphagnum magellanicum 
  Yousefi, Narjes; Hassel, Kristian; Flatberg, Kjell Ivar; et al. 
  AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY, 104 (7): 1060-1072 JUL 2017 Article (Details)
• A fern AINTEGUMENTA gene mirrors BABY BOOM in promoting apogamy in Ceratopteris richardii 
  Bui, Linh T.; Pandzic, Dzevida; Youngstrom, Christopher E.; et al. 
  PLANT JOURNAL, 90 (1): 122-132 APR 2017 Article (Details)

• 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

• Comparative evolutionary developmental biology
• Evolutionary genomics
• Adaptation to changing climate
• Evolutionary transcriptomics
• Breeding system evolution