Potamopyrgus genome project

Why sexual reproduction is so overwhelmingly common remains a fundamental unanswered question for evolutionary biology. This project focuses on Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a New Zealand snail, which has both sexual and independently-derived asexual lineages that make it ideally suited to address fundamental evolutionary questions of how genes and genomes evolve in the absence of sexual reproduction. This research takes advantage of the unique strengths of P. antipodarum and extend them to the genomic level, generating novel insights into the genetic consequences of sexual reproduction and its absence. This project also provides key steps forward in developing P. antipodarum into a powerful model system for many important biological questions, from host-parasite dynamics to ecotoxicology.