Project Details
Projekt
Global patterns of genomic innovations underlying insect evolution
Subject Area
Evolution, Anthropology
Term
since 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 503348080
New experimental and computational techniques provide exciting opportunities to study the evolutionary history of genomes and to reconstruct the emergence of new traits from an integrated, phylogenomic perspective, way beyond the limited perspective of model species. GEvol will exploit these opportunities by connecting researchers from complementary fields, including genomics, bioinformatics, evolutionary ecology, molecular evolution, and developmental biology to unravel the dynamics of major genomic innovations underlying novel traits in insects. For example, we will study: gain and loss of sociality or mating systems; complex systems of communication and defence, developmental and morphological innovations and plasticity. Many genomic and other OMIC resources now become available at unprecedented breadth and depth, allowing for comparative evolutionary genomic studies to delineate past events, even many million years ago. We will employ multiple quantitative OMICs resources (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics and epigenomics) to study the roles of coding vs. regulatory changes, transposable elements, epigenetics, gene family evolution, copy number dynamics and structural genomic rearrangements. Core project 1 will focus on genomic innovations, comprising the expansion or contraction of gene families, including the de novo emergence of novel genes and the prevalence and effects of gene losses. We will study the frequency at which novel protein domains are gained or lost and how they are rearranged. Through collaborations, we will develop tools for automated integration of new data from annotation pipelines with the objective to compute selection signatures across the whole insect phylogeny and relate them to phenotypic innovations and transitions in gene regulation.Core project 2 will study the evolutionary history and impact of mechanisms for epigenetic regulation, which are remarkably diverse across insects. This project will advance from studying broad DNA methylation patterns by linking methylation, histone acetylation, and chromatin accessibility patterns to gene expression, across a broad phylogenetic range. Here, a close collaboration is planned with several groups from the SPP to support in data acquisition and analyses, and furthermore, to gain further insights into the evolution of histone modification enzymes and the role of transcription factor binding sites and enhancers, and thus gene regulation. Besides their prevalent own agenda, both projects will also liaise with other groups in scientific collaborations and attend to the academic affairs of training and teaching workshops in comparative evolutionary genomics, data analysis, and biocomputing.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
