Evolutionary genetics:  because the world is changing.

Genetic variation is important because without it, populations cannot evolve.

There are two ubiquitous and contradictory observations about traits in natural populations: there is genetic variation for almost every trait ever tested, and most traits are under natural selection. These observations are contradictory, because we expect natural selection to erode genetic variation. Why then does variation persist?

 The Wayne lab uses Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism, but we also work on a wide variety of other animals.

Model organisms are used because they are easier to work with than other organisms. For example, fruit flies like Drosophila melanogaster are a model organism for other invertebrates, such as mosquitoes, and even people. Genetic experiments that would be unacceptable in humans, such as inbreeding, can be performed with flies. Flies are also inexpensive, occupy little space in the lab, have a short generation time, and have wonderful genetic tools available that have been developed since the 1910's. We can extrapolate many results from flies to people, because flies and humans share much of their genetic material and genetic architecture. The fruit fly D. melanogaster is also interesting in its own right, as a worldwide human commensal.

Other animals students in the lab have worked on include the leopard gecko, Eublepharia macularis; the marine polychaete worm, Hydroides elegans; and the freshwater snail, Campeloma limum.  Our work is united by the common question, what maintains genetic variations in natural populations? 

Wayne Lab summer reading projects:  2011, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010); 2010, Darwinian Detectives by Norman Johnson (2007); 2009, The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (1999); 2008, The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution by John Thompson (2005); 2007, we read The Journey of Man:  A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells (2004).