Monday May 25

Jeff Doyle

School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, US

Jeff Doyle’s research lies in the area of molecular systematics, molecular evolution, and comparative genomics. Jeff is particularly interested in genome duplication, specifically the origin and evolution of polyploidy and its functional and regulatory consequences. His research has primarily focused on polyploid complexes in the genusGlycine, which includes the cultivated soybean (G. max).

Polyploidy and the structural and functional evolution of plant genomes: Examples from soybean and other legumes

Polyploidy (whole genome duplication; WGD) is a key phenomenon in plant genome evolution. All seed plants are derived from a polyploid ancestor, and all flowering plant species have experienced one or more additional cycles of polyploidy and diploidization. Soybean (Glycine max), though functionally diploid, has experienced two rounds of polyploidy in the last 60 million years, and close relatives are allopolyploids, having undergone hybridization and genome doubling within the last half million years. We have developed Glycine, particularly the recent allopolyploids, as a model for studying polyploidy, addressing questions of how allopolyploid species originate, how they deploy, integrate, and regulate the genomes of their diploid progenitors, how their transcriptomes differ from their progenitors, and how polyploid evolution has produced novel and often transgressive physiology and ecology.

Read more about Jeff Doyle and his research
Host: Andres Cortes