We have been awarded an interfaculty research grant from Mind Brain Behavior to study nIR perception in insects! Thank you Prof. Naomi Pierce, and MBB.
After an exciting busy semester teaching, I am thrilled to start my new project on the genetic basis of insect sensory perception in Naomi Pierce's research group and as a Wallenberg Fellow in collaboration with the Broad Institute, alongside amazing researchers and colleagues working on a multitude of aspects on insect, plant and microbial ecology and evolution!
Check out our new fly male sterility paper, in which I identify two DNA-binding genes causing hybrid sterility, and where reproductive isolation can be seen as a Quantitative Polygenic Trait.
Hybrid sterility is a frequent outcome of crosses between closely related plant and animal species because of incompatibilities that have evolved in the parental genomes. Here, we show that a small region associated with hybrid male sterility between two closely related species of Drosophila contains two genes, both encoding DNA-binding proteins, each of which contributes to the hybrid male sterility.... Read more about DNA-binding proteins underlie male hybrid sterility in fruitflies
Dr. Liénard co-authored a chapter on Small Ermine Moths: Role of Pheromones in Reproductive Isolation and Speciation together with Dr. Löfstedt in a newly published book on Pheromone Communication in Moths : Evolution, Behavior and Application (Editors Jeremy Allison and Ring Carde).
Hybrid sterility is a frequent outcome of crosses between closely related plant and animal species because of incompatibilities that have evolved in the parental genomes. Here, we show that a small region associated with hybrid male sterility between two closely related species of Drosophila contains two genes, both encoding DNA-binding proteins, each of which contributes to the hybrid male sterility.... 