Welcome to the Fish Evo Devo Geno Lab!

Our research focuses on genomic and morphological change in vertebrates over long macro-evolutionary timescales. We utilize diverse groups of fishes such as gar, bowfin, zebrafish, medaka, and killifishes as model systems to answer fundamental questions about the developmental and genomic basis of major transitions during vertebrate animal evolution, including our own human lineage.

Our integrative research program combines comparative genomics with experimental developmental studies of gene functions to answer questions that have long interested evolutionary biologists:

(1) How does biodiversity arise from diversification of genome content by gen(om)e duplication and gene loss?

(2) How do changes in gene regulation contribute to evolutionary novelties and key innovations?

(3) How can evolutionary genetic principles be applied to improve the understanding of human disease?

Lab News

Latest Publication


Thompson et al. (2020) The genome of the bowfin (Amia calva) illuminates the developmental evolution of ray-finned fishes.
preprint doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-92055/v1

See Bowfin also in the OneZoom Tree of Life Explorer.

2021

April 2021

Gar Skull

In a new study in collaboration with the group of Tetsuya Nakamura published in Developmental Dynamics, we explore the development of the gar skull.

Gar Eyes

In a new study led by colleagues  Alain Chédotal  and Filippo Del Bene published in Science, we show that gar and other non-teleost fish have bilateral visual connections from eye to brain, revising the evolutionary history of 3D vision.

Read about it here in MSU Today.

2020

December 2020

Our chromosome-level genome assembly plus NCBI RefSeq gene annotations for the Rio Pearlfish (Nematolebias whitei) are now publicly available.

This annual killifish species is an emerging Eco-Evo-Devo model to study develop-mental adaptations to extreme environmental conditions. A genome publication is forthcoming. Get in touch if you would like to use the Pearlfish genome in your research.
See also our Killi-Kits, a STEM outreach tool that uses Pearlfish and other killifishes.

November 2020

We received a $1.6 Mio. NSF IOS EDGE grant together with our collaborators Allyse Ferrara and Solomon David from Nicholls State University! More info here via MSU Today and NSF IOS.   

October 2020

  • The lab submitted five abstracts for #SICB2021 - see you online in January!
  • Our new website is online. Hello World!