Welcome to our lab!

Molecular phylogenetics uses the information contained in DNA and proteins to study the evolutionary relationships among organisms. Our research interests concern various aspects of molecular phylogenetics. More specifically it involves:

  • Phylogeny:

    Reconstructing evolutionary relationships among species by sequencing nuclear and mitochondrial genes.
  • Molecular evolution:

    Large-scale genomic databases and high throughput sequencing projects combined with experimental approaches now allow us to get insights into genome evolution.
  • The use of discreet characters as phylogenetic markers:

    Sequencing and analyzing genomic retrotransposons (SINES and LINES), and analysis of insertion and deletion characters in protein sequences in order to infer phylogenetic relationships.
  • Phylogeography:

    Understanding sequence variation at the species level, and its correlation with spatial variation.
  • Molecular dating:

    estimating molecular divergence dates and evaluating the congruence between molecular and paleontological data.