Subject : Grey-zone of speciation in the green world
Keywords: Speciation, population dynamic, demographic inferences, plants, mating systems
Supervisors: Camille Roux (EEP, Lille); Xavier Vekemans (EEP, Lille); Yves Van De Peer (Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent)
Started in October 2020
Email: monnet.fr.pro@gmail.com
Office: SN2, room 206
The phenomenal amount of genomic data now available provides an understanding of the history of life on a scale never before encountered. Current challenges include understanding population dynamics in order to measure the rate at which an organism becomes extinct (Galapagos turtle) or spreads worldwide (Coronavirus). Similarly, it has become crucial to understand the mechanisms of species diversification (speciation) at a time of global change and declining diversity.
Considerable insight has been gained on speciation in animals from a recent meta-analysis of 61 species pairs. Among those, we learned that 1) genomic exchanges are widespread between distant species and 2) there is a 2% divergence threshold of divergence beyond which hybridization is suppressed. To date, we do not know whether this pattern is universal or specific to animals.
Here, we wish to improve current methods for detecting gene flow between different plant
species and then compare it to what we know about animals. Thus, for each identified pair of plant populations, we will estimate the probability of gene flow from genomic data available in NCBI. It will produce the first picture of speciation dynamics in plants. This pattern will then be dissected to understand the roles of different life history traits related to the mating system and dispersal capacity.