An unprecedented number of pathogenic fungi are emerging and causing disease in
animals and plants, putting the resilience of wild and managed ecosystems in jeopardy …

A major goal of comparative genomics research is modeling changes in DNA sequences
between species to understand the evolutionary forces acting on species differences …

Kimura's neutral theory argued that positive selection was not responsible for an
appreciable fraction of molecular substitutions. Correspondingly, quantitative analysis …

Background Speciation genes contribute disproportionately to species divergence, but few
examples exist, especially in vertebrates. Here we test whether Zan, which encodes the …

Convergent evolution describes the process of di erent populations acquiring similar
phenotypes or genotypes. Complex organisms with large genomes only rarely and only …

As de novo elements of the genome, orphan genes have long been postulated to play roles
in the establishment of genetic barriers to intercrossing and speciation. However, there is a …

The extraordinary morphological diversity among extant mammals poses a challenge for
studies of speciation, adaptation, molecular evolution, and reproductive isolation. Despite …

Over the past two decades the pace of spillovers from animal viruses to humans has
accelerated, with COVID-19 becoming the most deadly zoonotic disease in living memory …

The impact of spliceosomal introns on genome and organismal evolution remains puzzling.
Here, we investigated the correlative associations among genome-wide features of introns …

Modern genomic sequencing technologies provide the opportunity to address long-standing
questions in molecular evolution with empirical data. In this dissertation, I combine this new …