Previously deemed extremely slow, adaptive processes can in fact take place on several temporal and structural levels. From climate change to internal catastrophes like hybridization or whole-genome doubling leading to polyploidization, sudden alterations in the environment drive rapid adaptive shifts. Despite tremendous recent advances, we still do not fully understand the extent and timescale of interactions between genotype, epigenotype and environment, and their individual contributions to adaptation, phenotypic divergence and evolution.
Our group broadly investigates why and how organisms diversify. For this aim, we focus on adaptation and divergence as fundamental evolutionary processes. We use integrative approaches, built upon a genomics core, in order to understand how organisms speciate and spread across niches, including some novel to their groups.
By integrating molecular data in their environmental context, we investigate natural populations of non-model and model organisms in order to explain the origin of biodiversity and its dynamics. Of particular interest for us is to understand the role of the environment in the evolutionary process. An important theme in our recent work is the exploration of the role of epigenetic variation in adaptive evolution.
Selected recent publications
For the complete publication list see here.
Groot Crego et al. 2024. CAM evolution is associated with gene family expansion in an explosive bromeliad radiation. The Plant Cell 36: 4109-4131.
Chase et al. 2023. Down, then up: non-parallel genome size changes and a descending chromosome series in a recent radiation of Australian allotetraploid plant species in Nicotiana section Suaveolentes (Solanaceae). Annals of Botany 131: 123-142.
Szukala et al. 2023. Polygenic routes lead to parallel altitudinal adaptation in Heliosperma pusillum (Caryophyllaceae). Molecular Ecology 32: 1832-1847.
Eriksson et al. 2022. Repeat dynamics across timescales: a perspective from sibling allotetraploid marsh orchids (Dactylorhiza majalis s.l). Molecular Biology and Evolution 39: msac167.
Yardeni et al. 2022. Taxon-specific or universal? Using target capture to study the evolutionary history of rapid radiations. Molecular Ecology Resources 22: 927-945.
Brandrud MK, Baar J, ..., Paun O. 2020. Phylogenomic relationships of diploids and the origins of allotetraploids in Dactylorhiza (Orchidaceae). Systematic Biology 69: 91-109.
Paun O, Verhoeven K, Richards C. 2019. Opportunities and limitations of reduced representation bisulfite sequencing in plant ecological epigenomics. New Phytologist 221: 738-742.
Trucchi E, Frajman B, ..., Paun O. 2017. Genomic analyses suggest parallel ecological divergence in Heliosperma pusillum (Caryophyllaceae). New Phytologist 216: 267-278.
Richards CL, Alonso C, et al. 2017. Ecological plant epigenetics: Evidence from model and non-model species, and the way forward. Ecology Letters 20: 1576–1590.
Paun O, Turner B, et al. 2016. Processes driving the adaptive radiation of a tropical tree (Diospyros, Ebenaceae) in New Caledonia, a biodiversity hotspot. Systematic Biology 65: 212-217.