Carol Eunmi Lee
Associate Professor of Zoology
- Lab Home Page:
- Lee Lab
- Address:
- 420 Birge Hall
- Telephone:
- 262-2675
- Email:
- carollee@wisc.edu
- Research Fields:
- Population/Evolution
- Genomics
Ph.D., University of Washington, 1998
Postdoctoral Research: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC-San Diego
Research Interests
Genetic architecture and evolvability of invasive populations; Phenotypic evolution (physiology, morphology); Genomic targets of selection; Phylogeography and molecular ecology
Research Description
The research in my laboratory focuses on evolutionary mechanisms that allow organisms to cross boundaries between environments. Habitat transitions have led to major evolutionary episodes of radiation and speciation in many taxa. Over evolutionary time, two extraordinary habitat transitions have required solving problems of regulating fluxes between body fluids and the environment, namely, freshwater invasion from the sea, and terrestrial invasion from aquatic habitats. On contemporary time scales, the vast majority of successful invaders into the Great Lakes and other freshwater habitats are immigrants from brackish and saline sources. My research has focused on very recent invasions of fresh water from saltwater habitats, and adaptations to ion limitation in fresh water, integrating approaches from evolutionary physiology and genetics. Most of my research has focused on the copepod species complex Eurytemora affinis, which provides an ideal comparative system because of the presence of (1) multiple independent invasions into fresh water, offering replicated tests of adaptation, (2) invasive and noninvasive clades, allowing us to determine properties that are exclusive of invaders, (3) laboratory lines selected for freshwater tolerance, to test whether evolutionary events in the laboratory replicate those in nature, and (4) inbred lines, that are being used for SNP discovery and QTL-mapping. The key questions are: what are the genetic and physiological targets of selection during freshwater invasions and are the same evolutionary mechanisms involved during independent invasions? Using gene expression analysis and functional assays, we have found plausible candidate genes that might be under selection during invasion events. The freshwater populations have experienced evolutionary shifts in osmotic tolerance, V-type ATPase activity and expression, and integument permeability, among other things. We are sequencing the candidate genes and applying statistical tests in order to detect genomic signatures of selection. Using our inbred lines, we plan to perform high-resolution QTL-mapping of freshwater survival and integument permeability. Exploring parallelisms in evolutionary mechanisms across independent invasions could offer insights into the degree to which evolutionary pathways are constrained and deterministic.
Representative Publications
- Eads, B.D., G.W. Gelembiuk, M. Posavi and C.E. Lee. In Prep. Evolutionary shifts in gene expression across independent invasions by the copepod Eurytemora affinis.
- Lee, C.E. and G.W. Gelembiuk. 2008. Evolutionary origins of invasive populations. Evolutionary Applications. In Press.
- Winkler, G., J.J. Dodson and C.E. Lee. 2008. Heterogeneity within the native range: Population genetic analyses of sympatric invasive and noninvasive clades of the freshwater invading copepod Eurytemora affinis. Molecular Ecology. 17:415Ð430.
- Lee, C.E. 2002. Evolutionary genetics of invasive species. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 17:386-391.
- Lee, C.E. 1999. Rapid and repeated invasions of fresh water by the saltwater copepod Eurytemora affinis. Evolution. 53:1423-1434.
- Lee, C.E, J.L. Remfert and Y. Chang. 2007. Response to selection and evolvability of invasive populations. Genetica. 129:179-192.
- Lee, C.E. 2002. Evolutionary genetics of invasive species. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 17:386-391.
- Lee, C.E. and B.W. Frost. 2002. Morphological stasis in the Eurytemora affinis species complex (Copepoda: Temoridae). Hydrobiologia. 480:111-128.