“Exploring the Genomic Landscape of Hybridisation and Polyploidy”

by Dr. Alex Twyford 
Lecturer in Botany at the University of Edinburgh and Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Tuesday, March 19, 2024, Lunch at 12:00PM; Presentation at 12:30PM, held in E252 CSE Bldg (UFBI/UFII offices)

ABSTRACT:

Natural hybridisation—the cross mating of different species in the wild—is increasingly recognized as being pervasive across the Tree of Life. Most work to date has focused on ecological or evolutionary model plant systems chosen for their noteworthy hybrids, while the true variation in hybridisation across flowering plant species remains unknown. In this talk, I discuss the outcomes of natural hybridisation in arguably the best studied of floras, the native flowering plants of Britain and Ireland. Comparative analyses of hybridisation from 1,100 flowering plant species shows parental genetic distance is a primary predictor of hybrid formation, while ploidy differences are a less strong barrier than widely thought. A focused genomic study of 378 populations of hybridising eyebrights (Euphrasia) shows rampant hybridisation blurs species boundaries and dominates the signal across the genome. These results are a step towards understanding the wider genomic landscape of hybridisation and suggest a need for us to reassess some commonly assumed reproductive barriers.

Bio:

Dr. Alex Twyford did his PhD on hybridisation in tropical Begonias at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, followed by a postdoc studying chromosomal inversions in monkeyflowers at Syracuse University, New York. He started his own research group in plant genomics at the University of Edinburgh in 2014, becoming Associate Professor in 2021. He is Academic Lead of Edinburgh Genomics, one of the largest open access academic sequencing facilities in the UK, and a Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024
12:30PM – 1:30PM
Lunch will serve at Noon
Free: while the lunch and presentation are free, registration is required to make sure there is adequate seating and food.