TiBE 2026 | The evolutionary role of structural genomic variation across the Tree of Life

   

The University of Texas at Austin, USA

   

The Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, UK

Joana is an evolutionary biologist excited by the powerful opportunities genome sequencing provides to explore how biodiversity evolves, in particular why biodiversity is so unevenly distributed across the tree of life. Most lineages evolve new species at a slow pace of one species per multiple million years, whereas much of biodiversity is thought to have evolved through bursts of diversification in a few lineages. Often these bursts represent adaptive radiations, where a lineage diversifies into many species adapted to different ecological niches. It remains enigmatic why some lineages are prone to such radiations, whereas others never do so. Whole-genome data now allows testing predictions of the role of hybridization and other factors facilitating diversification, such as a simple genetic architecture of speciation traits or chromosomal rearrangements. Her team works on different animal and plant groups to explore these factors by combining genomics with ecological and behavioural studies.