Rute da Fonseca
Avian genomics
Me and Angela Ribeiro used genomic data to characterize the evolution of hemostasis in vertebrates. The overlap with the inflammation, complement and renin-angiotensin (blood pressure regulation) pathways seems to be the potential driver of rapid molecular evolution in the hemostasis network. Comparisons between avian species and mammals allowed us to hypothesize that the observed mammalian innovations might have contributed to the diversification of mammals that give birth to live young.
Tom Gilbert, Guojie Zhang and Erich Jarvis have brought together a large international team to explore the relationships of 48 genomes of birds, which resulted in various papers exploring the relationships within birds, 8 of them in a special issue in Science. I mainly contributed to the 2 flagship papers, on phylogenomics and comparative genomics across birds.