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Bret Payseur

Assistant Professor of Medical Genetics

Lab Home Page:

Payseur Lab

Address:

2428 Genetics/Biotech

Telephone:

890-0867

Email:

payseur@wisc.edu

Research Fields:

Genomics

Mouse Genetics

Population/Evolution

Research Interests

Population genetics, genetics of speciation and genetics of morphological evolution

Research Description

Understanding the genetic basis of evolutionary change is a long-standing and important challenge for biologists. Because evolutionary forces leave footprints in patterns of DNA variation, we can use polymorphism to learn about the relative contributions of these processes. This approach is becoming more exciting and practical as the ability to survey variation on a genomic scale rapidly improves. We use this framework to address two fundamental questions in evolutionary genetics.

1. How do new species arise? A major goal of our research is to identify the genetic changes that confer reproductive isolation between species. Previous theoretical and empirical research indicates that hybrid sterility and inviability are often caused by incompatible changes at interacting loci. We use this knowledge to locate genes underlying reproductive isolation by searching the genome for (i) individual regions showing unusually low introgression between species and (ii) pairs of loci displaying unusually high levels of association in hybrid populations. We use house mice (Mus musculus) as a model system for this research.
2. How does natural selection affect genomic patterns of variation? While demographic forces, such as population size changes, are expected to be visible across the genome, natural selection targets particular genomic regions. This idea leads to the prediction that loci under selection (or linked to selective targets) should show unusual patterns of variation compared to the genome as a whole. We apply this reasoning to large polymorphism datasets to locate and characterize genomic regions influenced by natural selection. The ultimate goal is to measure the relative roles of beneficial mutations (those responsible for adaptation) and deleterious mutations in shaping genomic patterns of variation. Our model system for this research is humans (Homo sapiens).

Representative Publications

• Moyle, L.C. and B.A. Payseur. 2009. Reproductive isolation grows on trees. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, in press.
• Payseur, B.A. and P. Jing. 2009. A genome-wide comparison of population structure at STRPs and nearby SNPs in humans. Molecular Biology and Evolution 26:1369-1377.
• Payseur, B.A., M. Place and J.L. Weber. 2008. Linkage disequilibrium between STRPs and SNPs across the human genome. American Journal of Human Genetics 82:1039-1050.
• Dumont, B.L. and B.A. Payseur. 2008. Evolution of the genomic rate of recombination in mammals. Evolution 62:276-294.
• Payseur, B.A. and M. Place. 2007. Prospects for association mapping in classical inbred strains of mice. Genetics 175:1999-2008.