BRCAS

Dr. John Wang

Ph.D. Stanford University

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Office: Interdisciplinary Research Building for Science and Technology A302

Tel:+886-2-2787-1582

• Evolutionary genetics and genomics
• Social insect behavior
• Nematode genome evolution

Research Directions

• 1.Evolutionary genetics of societies
  Animal societies are extremely diverse with humans and ants having some of the largest and most complex. Within ants, social structures can range from small families of close kin to massive supercolonies composed of unrelated individuals. We use the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, as a model to study an intraspecific social polymorphism in queen number: colonies have either one or many queens. This simple difference in colony queen number is associated with differences not only in multiple individual phenotypes but also in the levels of cooperation and conflict among individuals between colony types. Using experimental and comparative genomics approaches we aim to determine the molecular genetic basis for these phenotypic differences. These studies will also help us understand the evolution of complex adaptive phenotypes.
• 2. Evolution of genome size
  The genome sizes of eukaryote species vary across five orders of magnitude and its evolution depends on a balance between expansion and contraction mechanisms. In Caenorhabditis nematodes, hermaphroditic species have smaller genomes than male/female species, likely as a result of non-independent assortment between the sex and autosomal chromosomes. Our lab is studying the genetic basis for this violation of Mendelian inheritance with the goal of understanding genome size evolution in nematodes and other organisms.