Phylogenomics & Genomics in Marine Organisms

Yuanning-Li Lab

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Phylogeny

EVOLUTION
MAKES US

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." --Theodosius Dobzhansky

Diversity of eukaryotics is far greater than most people realize. In the Yuanning-Li lab, we are trying to use DNA records to study patterns and process of eukaryotic evolution on different time scales and with different types of genomic information. Combining a molecular systematic and/or genomic approach with information from organismal evolution has proved a powerful approach to study everything from the origin of major eukaryotic lineages (especially for marine invertebrates and fungi) to the recent adaptation to deep-sea chemosynthetic environments. Research in the lab focuses on utilizing computational approaches and genome-scale data to gain insight into molecular phylogenetics, evolutionary biology, comparative genomics, and bioinformatics.

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Our Team

June, 2023

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Sept, 2023

Lab News

◆Sept, 2023◆

The Li lab was funded by NSFC General Program(No. 42376147)and Youth Science Fund Program(No. 32300186)!

  • Nov, 2022
  • Qingdao, Shandong, China

Contrasting modes of macro and microsynteny evolution in a eukaryotic subphylum

We analyzed 120 budding yeast genomes to examine evolution of genome organization.
Budding yeasts exhibit lower macrosynteny than animals and filamentous fungi.
Budding yeasts exhibit high levels of microsynteny conservation on par with mammals.
Genes in metabolic clusters are deeply conserved across the subphylum.

Yuanning Li

  • Aug, 2022
  • Qingdao, Shandong, China

Lab Established

In August of 2022, we cleaned the laboratory together and completed the preliminary construction of the laboratory.

Li lab all members

  • Jun, 2022
  • Beihai, Guangxi, China

Sampling in Beihai

Biyang Xu

  • Apr, 2021
  • Nashville, Tennessee, US
  • Cover article

  • A genome-scale phylogeny of the kingdom Fungi

    Genome-scale phylogeny of the fungal kingdom based on 290 genes and 1,644 species
    85% of inferred phylogenetic relationships among fungi are robustly supported
    Certain unresolved relationships may be due to ancient diversification events
    Fungal higher rank taxonomy broadly reflects organisms' genome sequence divergence

    Yuanning Li