Diana Rennison
University of California-San Diego, CA·Ecology & Evolution
If evolution were replayed, would the same genes change again? Whether the genetic basis of adaptation is predictable or largely random is a basic question in biology.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
evolutionary biology
evolutionary genetics
parallel evolution
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2028
What they work on
- Survey replicate freshwater threespine stickleback populations with population genomics to measure how genetic parallelism, the repeated use of the same genes, translates across biological levels from genes to traits.
- Test whether the source and type of genetic variation, and epistatic interactions between genes, predict how often a gene is used during freshwater adaptation in stickleback.
- Create genetically engineered stickleback lines differing only in allele frequencies at candidate loci to test whether fitness effects predict the degree of gene reuse in nature.
- Measure the fitness consequences of genetically distinct but outwardly similar evolutionary routes to freshwater adaptation.
More about the research
The answer matters for predicting how crops, pathogens and endangered species will respond to new pressures. Replicate populations that have adapted to the same conditions on their own provide a natural experiment for asking how often evolution reuses the same genes, a pattern called genetic parallelism.
Why it matters
Knowing when evolution follows predictable genetic paths could help forecast how populations adapt to new challenges. This could inform agricultural breeding, conservation of populations facing environmental change, and public health questions about adaptation. The work also aims to supply estimates needed to build predictive models of evolution.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Emily Beck
University of Kansas, KS·Genetics
Identify how the nuclear genome compensates for fast-evolving, highly divergent mitochondrial genomes in admixed threespine stickleback populations, using publicly available sequencing data.
Andrew Mongue
University of Florida, FL·Ecology & Evolution
Construct a global phylogeny of bagworm moths from field-collected species to count how many times extreme female sexual dimorphism, including winglessness and loss of legs and eyes, evolved independently.
Vladimir Pravosudov
University of Nevada-Reno, NV·Ecology & Evolution
Identify the genetic basis of specialized spatial memory in food-caching mountain chickadees by combining whole-genome sequence and sequence capture data with spatial cognition measurements.
The school
University of California-San Diego: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 637 research doctorates a year.
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