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SUMMARY:Making it big: extreme genome sizes in salamanders
LOCATION:Anatomy/Zoology Building W118
TZID:America/Denver
DTSTART:20130001T000000
UID:2026-05-19-13-56-20@natsci.colostate.edu
DTSTAMP:20260519T135620
Description:Among vertebrates\, most of the largest genomes are found withi
 n the salamanders\, a clade of amphibians that includes 600+ recognized sp
 ecies. Salamander genome sizes range from ~14 Gb to ~120 Gb\; these values
  are larger than all bird\, mammal\, reptile\, and frog genomes\, as well 
 as most fish genomes. My lab is working to understand the evolutionary pro
 cesses underlying extreme genome gigantism in the salamander clade. We hav
 e shown that salamanders lose DNA more slowly from their genomes than do o
 ther vertebrates\, both through small (i.e. a few bp) and large (i.e. a fe
 w kb) deletions. We have also shown that salamander genomes reflect high l
 evels of transposable elements\, but that the relative abundance of differ
 ent kinds of transposable elements is different in salamanders than in oth
 er vertebrates. Within salamanders\, we show that life history is a predic
 tor of genome size. In this seminar\, I will discuss our ongoing analyses 
 aimed at understanding the evolutionary forces shaping genome size at the 
 vertebrate extremes. 4:00 pm
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