Clara Groot Crego

Postdoctoral researcher

phone:+43-1-4277-540 40

room: 209

e-mail

Evolution in all its shapes and forms fascinates and intrigues me: from the shaping of the tree of life to short time scale changes in populations. In a very broad sense, I would like to understand the forces and dynamics which explain the fantastic diversity of the natural world, be it in plants, animals, fungi or prokaryotes.

At the moment, I’m focusing on understanding the evolutionary forces that drive adaptive radiations. I’m using genomic data to disentangle the demographic history and selection regime of radiated versus non-radiated clades, especially focusing on tillandsioid bromeliads, a neotropical plant group from the Americas.

Biographical information

since Apr 2024: Postdoctoral fellow, Lille University, France and University of Vienna, Austria. Main project: Exploring drivers of reproductive isolation in plant evolutionary radiations.

2019-2024: PhD student, University of Vienna and Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics, Austria. Molecular sources of variation and their role in the adaptive radiation of Tillandisa (Bromeliaceae). Supervisors: Ovidiu Paun, Joachim Hermisson, Magnus Nordborg

Jun-Nov 2022: visiting PhD student in the Svardal lab, University of Antwerp, Belgium. Funded by EMBO.

2016-2018: Master of Excellence and Mobility in Evolutionary Biology (MEME), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (NL), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (GER), University of Montpellier (FR).

2013-2016: BSc. in Biology, KU Leuven, Belgium.

 

 

Awards / Third-party funding

2022 - EMBO short-term fellowship grant for a 3 months research stay abroad in the Svardal lab, University of Antwerp, Belgium.

 

 

Publications

Groot Crego C, Hess J, Yardeni G, de la Harpe M, Beclin F, Cauz-Santos LA, Saadain S, Barbara T, Temsch EM, Weiss-Schneeweiss H, Barfuss MHJ, Till W, Heyduk K, Lexer C, Paun O*, Leroy T*. 2024. CAM evolution is associated with gene family expansion in an explosive bromeliad radiation. The Plant Cell in press. Pre-print: bioRxiv 2023.02.01.526631.

Groot Crego C, Saadain S, de La Harpe M, Hess J, Barfuss MHJ, Till W, Lexer C, Paun O. 2024. Closely related facultative and constitutive CAM phenotypes show little transcriptomic overlap in the subgenus Tillandsia. BioRxiv 2024.05.09.593278 .

Yardeni G, Barfuss MHJ, Till W, Thornton MR, Groot Crego C, Lexer C, Leroy T, Paun O. 2023. The explosive radiation of the Neotropical Tillandsia subgenus Tillandsia (Bromeliaceae) has been facilitated by pervasive hybridization. BioRxiv 2023.02.01.526631.

Yardeni G, Viruel J, Paris M, Hess J, Groot Crego C, de La Harpe M, Rivera N, Barfuss MHJ, Till W, Guzman-Jacob V, Kroemer T, Lexer C*, Paun O*, Leroy T*. 2022. Taxon-specific or universal? Using target capture to study the evolutionary history of a rapid radiation. Molecular Ecology Resources 22: 927-945. Pre-print: bioRxiv 2021.2005.2020.444989.

Campos PE, Groot Crego C, Boyer K, Gaudeul M, Baider C, et al. 2021. First historical genome of a crop bacterial pathogen from herbarium specimen: Insights into citrus canker emergence. PLoS Pathogens 17(7): e1009714.

Nolen ZJ, Yildirim B, Irisarri I, Liu S, Groot Crego C, Buchvaldt Amby D, Mayer F, Gilbert MTP, Pereira RJ. 2020. Historical isolation facilitates species radiation by sexual selection: Insights from Chorthippus grasshoppers. Molecular Ecology 29: 4985-5002.

Barbut L, Groot Crego C, Delerue‐Ricard S, Vandamme S, Volckaert FAM, Lacroix G. 2019. How larval traits of six flatfish species impact connectivity. Limnology and Oceanography 64: 1150-1171.



Conference contributions

Groot Crego C, Hess J, Yardeni G, De La Harpe M, Beclin F, Cauz-Santos LA, Saadain S, Barbara T, Temsch EM, Weiss-Schneeweiss H, Barfuss MJ, Till W, Heyduk K, Lexer C, Paun O, Leroy T. 2023. Short structural variation fuelled CAM evolution within an explosive bromeliad radiation. SMBE 2023, Ferrera, Italy, 22-27 July 2023 [poster].

Groot Crego C, Hess J, Beclin F, De La Harpe M, Yardeni G, Schneeweiss H, Saadain S, Cauz-Santos L, Barbara T, Paris M, Barfuss MJ, Till W, Lexer C, Leroy T, Paun O. 2022. Exploring drivers of adaptove radiation using a comparative genomics framework in Tillandsia (Bromeliaceae). ESEB 2022, Prague, Czech Republic, 14-19 Aug 2022 [poster].

Groot Crego C, Hess J, Beclin F, De La Harpe M, Yardeni G, Paris M, Schneeweiss H, Barfuss MJ, Till W, Leroy T, Paun O, Lexer C. 2021. Genome dynamics shape an evolutionary radiation in Tillandsia (Bromeliaceae). SMBE 2021 (virtual), 3-8 July 2021 [oral presentation].

Groot Crego C, Hess J, De La Harpe M, Yardeni G, Paris M, Barfuss MJ, Till W, Leroy T, Paun O, Lexer C. 2021. Comparative genomics of an adaptive radiation using two ecologically divergent Tillandsia species (Bromeliaceae). Genomes of Animals & Plants Conference (GAP), USA (virtual), 12-14 January 2021 [poster].

Groot Crego C, Hess J, De La Harpe M, McNeir N, Yardeni G, Paris M, Barfuss MJ, Till W, Leroy T, Paun O, Lexer C. 2020. Comparative genomics approaches as tools to unveil the drivers of evolutionary radiations. Botany 2020, USA (virtual), 27-31 July 2020 [oral presentation].