Evolutionary Genetics & Genomics at UGA

Evolution & Ecology ILS Group

What are the genetic changes that drive evolution? How do the processes of mutation, drift, selection, non-random mating, and gene flow interact in the process of evolution?
Faculty in this area address diverse topics such as the genetic mechanisms of adaptation and speciation, the evolution of the genome, the reconstruction of evolutionary history using genetic data, and the metagenomic diversity of the community.
Jill Anderson

Evolutionary genetics and population ecology of plants; global change biology; field ecology; seed dispersal ecology; frugivorous fish.

Tessa Andrews

Undergraduate evolution education; instructor experiences, knowledge, and skills in teaching biology; teaching context and climate in life science departments.

Jonathan Arnold

Fungal gene regulatory and biochemical networks, and biological clocks.

Michael Arnold

Evolutionary significance of genetic exchange; effects of hybridization in natural populations of plants and animals.

Jeff Bennetzen

Plant genomics and genome evolution, transposable elements, and regulatory gene evolution.

Douda Bensasson

Genome bioinformatics, ecological and evolutionary genomics of yeast.

Casey Bergman

Genome structure, function and evolution.

Gaelen Burke

Functional and evolutionary genomics of microbial associations with insects; virology, symbiosis, immunity.

John Burke

Evolutionary genetics; molecular evolution; genomics.

Shu-Mei Chang

Evolutionary ecology of flowering plants; plant mating system evolution.

Katrien Devos

Crop genetics, comparative genomics, and genome evolution.

Lisa Donovan

Plant evolutionary ecophysiology, adaptations to stress.

Kelly Dyer

Molecular evolution and evolutionary genetics of Drosophila.

Art Edison

Understanding the role of small molecules in biology, including chemical communication, metabolomics, and systems biology.

Mark Farmer

Protist systematics, cell evoluation, and flagellar development.

Travis Glenn

Environmental Genomics; Crocodilians; Reptilian Genomics; Molecular Ecology.

David Hall

Experimental evolution in budding yeast. Mathematical models of evolution.

Brendan Hunt

Behavioral and evolutionary genetics and epigenetics of social insects.

Natarajan Kannan

Evolutionary systems biology; protein kinase signaling in plants, pathogens, and microbes.

Jessica Kissinger

Parasite genomics and the biology of genome evolution.

Jim Leebens-Mack

Phylogenetics, genetics of diversification; molecular basis of adaptation; evolutionary genomics; evolution of plant reproduction; organismal and molecular coevolution.

Liang Liu

Phylogenetics, evolutionary biology, statistics.

Wolfgang Lukowtiz

Fertilization, and early cell-fate decisions in plant embryos.

Russell Malmberg

Bioinformatics of non-coding RNAs and gene family evolution; evolutionary genetics of Sarracenia (Pitcher plant) species.

Rodney Mauricio

Ecological genetics of plants; invasive plants; genetics of adaptation.

Doug Menke

Developmental regulation of gene expression; evolution of vertebrate morphology.

 

Allen Moore

Genetics, evolution, and development of behavior; sexual selection; quantitative genetic models of evolution.

Mary Ann Moran

Ecology of marine bacteria in the carbon and sulfur cycles; application of ecological function genomics technqiues to marine microbes.

Jan Mrazek

Bioinformatics and comparative genomics to study relationship between DNA sequence and physiological characteristics; processes that govern flow of genetic information.

David Nelson

Hormone and abiotic signaling networks in plants; post-fire seed germination.

Andrew Paterson

Plant genome biology and evolution.

Ken Ross

Population biology, evolutionary genetics, molecular systematics, and comparative genomics of social insects (fire ants) with an emphasis on studies of genetic variation.

Bob Schmitz

Population epigenomics and mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance.

Kathrin Stanger-Hall

Signal evolution in fireflies. Evolution of communication systems.

Andrea Sweigart

Evolutionary genetics and genomics of natural plant populations.

Dorset Trapnell

Evolutionary biology and population genetics of natural plant populations; patterns of genetic variation; mechanisms for partitioning and maintaining species-wide diversity.

C.J. Tsai

Growth-defense tradeoff, phenylpropanoid metabolism and carbon allocation, gene family evolution and functional diversification, alternative splicing and gene duplication.

John Wares

Ecological genetics of natural populations.

Michael White

Evolutionary genomics and sex chromosome evolution.