Molekulare Phylogenet...

Current research projects

Bioinformatic infrastructure for AFTOL

The NSF-initiated 'Assembling the Tree of Life' Project aims to “reconstruct the evolutionary origin of all living things”. Researchers from all over the world are currently collaborating to generate phylogenies for the various branches of the Tree of Life, each focusing on their area of expertise. One of these sub-projects is AFTOL (Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life, www.lutzonilab.net/aftol), which is a collaboration of five labs in four universities in the US. AFTOL aims at collecting the DNA sequences for seven genetic loci for a total of 1500 taxa. To efficiently coordinate the taxon sampling, DNA extraction and sequencing, and the various steps that are part of a large-scale multi-gene phylogenetic analysis, we developed WASABI. WASABI (Web Accessible Sequence Analysis for Biological Inference) is a software that provides the computational infrastructure for multi-user multi-gene phylogenetic projects. In addition to serving as a web-accessible sequence and voucher database, WASABI provides the functionality for automated sequence analysis, verification, and data set assembly. WASABI is unique as it supports the user by carrying out all steps from processing raw sequence data to a multi-gene sequence analysis within a strong phylogenetic context. Although originally developed as a computational framework for the AFTOL project, WASABI can easily be adapted to the specific needs of most multi-user multi-gene sequencing projects.

Phylogeny of Cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are the oldest microorganisms performing oxygenic photosynthesis. Despite their morphological diversity, establishing a taxonomy that reflects evolutionary relationships has always been challenging. Molecular data has helped us to understand some aspects of the complex evolution of the Cyanobacteria, but many of the published phylogenetic trees still lack the statistical support on internal branches necessary for reliable conclusions. In a collaboration with Toni Gabaldon, recent analyses involving both whole genome data and multilocus gene analyses have provided us with new insights into cyanobacterial evolution. Gene selection will be critical for any phylogenetic analysis in cyanobacteria. Despite all uncertainties involved, several well supported natural groups started to emerge, whereas other long-standing classical cyanobacterial taxa were shown to be non-monophyletic assemblages.

Hyperdiverse endophytic fungi

Starting in 2011, our group is collaborating in a new project called "Dimensions of Biodiversity: An interdisciplinary study of hyperdiverse endophytic fungi and their function in boreal forests". More information is available at endbiodiversity.org.