Genomics of Stress Response
Humans are rapidly changing the natural world and we are interested in understanding how organisms respond to environmental change and stress. What makes some individuals susceptible while others are resistant? What are the genes and pathways that are involved? Why do some stressors induce non-monotonic responses, such that intermediate exposure levels are the most stressful? Much of our work has been on the effects of low dose herbicides on insects but we are also interested in nanoparticles, microplastics and other types of stress. We use GWAS, RNAi and qRT_PCR to investigate genes that are important for response to environmental stressors.
Sex-Specific Genetic Architectures & Evolution of Sexual Dimorphism
Many complex traits, even those not directly related to reproduction are sexually dimorphic. Some propose that sexually dimorphism is the result of resolved sexual conflict as males and females move towards their independent phenotypic optima. We are interested in understanding the genetic architecture of sexually dimorphic traits and determine what proportion of influential genes are shared between males and females and how that changes in stressful environments.
Mito-Nuclear Epistasis
Mitochondrial and nuclear genomes must work together for proper cellular homeostasis. Specific combinations of different nuclear alleles and mitochondrial haplotypes sometimes work very well together while other combinations don't, resulting in mito-nuclear epistasis. I am working with Dr. Heather Fiumera's lab to understand how mito-nuclear epistasis contributes to phenotypic variation and map the genetic basis for those interactions.
Conservation Genetics and Molecular Ecology
I have worked on a number of conservation related projects, including loss of genetic diversity in captive and supplemental breeding programs of freshwater fishes. I have also used molecular markers to investigate patterns of parentage in natural populations of organisms and estimate mating rates in the wild. I am also very interested in understanding how recent selection (such as that due to anthropegenic change) affects the future adaptive potential of populations.
