Evolutionary metagenomics
Viruses are central players in microbial communities and viruses also have a major effect on communities of eukaryotic organisms. This interaction has important consequences for the evolution of cellular organisms. We now have the technology to measure the genetic content of communities at high resolution and we can infer which organisms with which detailed genome organization they contain, including all community members - eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and viruses.
In my research group, we develop methods for the reconstruction of genomes and their evolutionary histories and gain biological insights by analysing data with these methods. Specifically, we develop and apply approaches to:
- reconstruct viruses from metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data, and
- infer microbial population genetic processes from genomic and metagenomic data.