Desiree Allen
Wellcome Trust Post Doctoral Researcher
Location: Location: Room G145 (We have recently relocated to the Peter Wilson / SAC Building at the Kings Buildings)
Telephone: 0131 535 4252
C.V.
PhD, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, 2006.
MSc, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 2000.
BSc, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, 1997.
Research interests
The broad focus of my research is the genetic architecture of adaptive traits in an evolutionary framework. I am interested in factors that influence the genetic and environmental variances of quantitative traits. In order to better understand the short- and long-term evolution of species, we need to study the mechanisms that create and maintain variation at the individual, population and species level. To do this I have used molecular and quantitative genetic tools to investigate how processes such as recombination, selection and drift affect trait variances, and the implications of that variance for species' evolutionary potential.
For my dissertation research I have investigated the effect of variable levels of sex (recombination and segregation) on genetic variance. Using microsatellite data on six populations of the cyclical parthenogen, Daphnia pulicaria, collected over three years, I have shown that variable investment in sex does affect neutral genetic variance in cyclical parthenogens. I have confirmed that allelic variation is greater in populations with low levels of sex due to prevalence of rare variants. In addition, low-sex populations showed genotypic differentiation across years in contrast to high-sex populations which showed very little change in genotype frequencies across years. Among other implications, these results suggest that lower investment in sex leads to a reduction in effective population size.