consequences of asexual reproduction in the genomic era

"Now,
sex... sex, sex, sex
where were we?"

Monty Phyton's Sex Education Sketch

My interest is to combine the fields of evolution, ecology and genetics to understand genomic consequences of asexual reproduction.
My current work focuses on signatures of ancient asexuality in oribatid mite genomes and transcriptomes. Especially, I am looking into the fate of transposable elements (TEs) in sexual and putatively long-term asexual lineages. Further, I am interested in how TEs may play a role in speciation events. Also, investigations of spermatogenesis, deleterious mutation accumulations and comparative studies of mitochondrial genomes of mites are in progress. These projects incorporate next generation sequencing technologies and bioinformatic analyses into evolutionary investigations.

• 4.Soria-Carrasco V, Gombert Z, Comeault AA, Farkas TE, Parchman TL, Johnson JS, Buerkle CA, Feder JL, Bast J, Schwander T, Egan SP, Crespi BJ, Nosil P. 2014. Stick Insect Genomes Reveal Natural Selection?s Role in Parallel Speciation Science, 244 738-742.
• 3. Flot JF, ..., Bast J et al. (40 authors) (2013) Genomic evidence for ameiotic evolution in the bdelloid rotifer Adineta vaga. Nature 500, 453-457
• 2. Kraaijeveld K & Bast J (2012) Transposable element proliferation as a possible side effect of endosymbiont manipulations. Mobile Genetic Elements 2: 0–1.
• 1. Kraaijeveld K & Bast J (2012) The genomic consequences of asexual reproduction. In: de Sousa F & Munévar G (Eds.); Sex, Reproduction and Darwinism. London, Pickering & Chatto.