Researchers in Botany, Horticulture, Statistics and Computer Sciences, led by Assistant Professor Cecile Ane (Statistics and Botany) are collaborating to find out why different genes tell different stories about the past history of species.
They aim to better understand the variability in vertical transmission of genetic material from generation to generation, and also understand how much horizontal transmission of genetic material has occurred in the past, such as from hybridization between species.
They were awarded NSF funding to integrate powerful statistical methods and software development.
These tools will allow them — and many other evolutionary biologists beyond our campus to extract vertical and horizontal signals from massive genomic data.