This web site is not a blog, even though it's a collection of random pieces of text on different subjects. However, I prefer more structure to the pages than the continuous flow common to the blog.
I am a researcher in fungal genomics and bioinformatics at the Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology at the Swedish University Agricultural Sciences. My main research interests are within the area of fungal evolutionary genomics and population genomics. You may find my publication list at Google Scholar or ResearchGate.
IUFRO2024 Poster
I am happy to share the IUFRO 2024 poster by PDF. Please email me at mikael.durling@slu.se and I will share it with you.
My research spans a few neighbouring topics centered on a genomic perspective on fungal evolution. As Theodosius Dobzhansky so famously stated "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (read more here). An evolutionary perspective provides a powerful framework to test hypothesis and understand the observations made.
DNA sequencing has seen an overwhelming development during the last 20 years. Today, sequencing of fungal genomes have become an affordable mainstream activity. This opens for novel biological questions to be approached. By comparing the genomes of different species with different ecological niches, we can make inferences about what genes and other genomics features that are involved in adaption to the environment.
My research in is primarily focused on comparative analysis of tree pathogens with the aim to understand the genomic signals of adaption. The work involves sequencing and annotation of the genomes to enable comparative analysis of the gene content of the species. This work is based on the assumption that novel functions can evolve through duplication and subsequent neo-functionalisation of a gene copy. Thus, the hypothesis of adaptive expansion of gene families can be tested (eg. using CAFE5).
In conjunction with these (and previous) projects, I have also developed workflows for the various analysis steps. Some of these tools/workflows are (will be) described here, others are described in conjunction to the respective publications.
Selected current projects/collaborations:
There are many different processes that affect how the DNA of an organism changes over evolutionary time. Comparative studies of the DNA sequences of related fungal species can shed light on what evolutionary processes and their relationships. For example, we can look at the how orthologous genes in related species with different ecological niches evolve, where differential evolution can be an indication that a gene is involved in niche adaption.
A common measure of evolutionary changes in genes is the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous base substitutions. An excess of non-synonymous changes, ie coding DNA base changes that causes an amino acid change in a protein, is an indication of adaptive evolution. In today's genomic era, such analysis can be done on a large number of genes as a survey for genes where adaptive change has occurred (see eg. our paper on Hymenoscyphus comparative genomics, Elfstrand et al 2021 doi:10.1186/s12864-021-07837-2).
Many ongoing evolutionary processes can be traced in how variation in the DNA of an organism varies across individuals in a population. Various events cause mutations to the DNA sequences forming new alleles. The frequencies of alleles are, in turn, affected by ongoing selection and drift. By studying how allele frequencies vary between and across genomes, we can test hypothesis different evolutionary events. For example, genes under selection can be identified, and population structure can be inferred.
Selected current projects/collaborations:
Copyright © 2024 Mikael Durling. Published May 28, 2024, updated June 24, 2024.