1. Why Do Sex Chromosomes Have Peculiar Passing Down Traits?

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For this assignment, I chose to interview Dr. Stuart McDaniel, an assistant professor at the University of Florida. Since Dr. McDaniel was a child, he loved the outdoors and was always interested in backpacking. He had a specific interest for maps and the distribution of plants. Plants on mountain tops never ceased to amaze him. He received is Bachelors of Science in biology from Oberlin College. In 1994, he moved to Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Agroforestry department. After that, he embarked his journey with moss biodiversity at the New York State Museum. Subsequently, he received his doctorate from Duke University with Jon Shaw, a professor of biology at Duke University. After that, he finished a NIH-NRSA postdoc fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. He joined the University of Florida’s biology department in 2009.
Dr. McDaniel’s lab is located in Carr Hall room 213. His lab consists of eight
…show more content…
What forces maintain variation within populations?
3. Do similar forces promote divergence among populations?
4. Why do sex chromosomes have peculiar passing down traits?
Research in Dr. McDaniel’s lab aims to answer these questions by using classical genetic and genome analyses of the moss model system, Ceratodon purpureus. They also use Physcomitrella patens, a spreading earth moss, as a model for gene function analysis. These questions pose to look at what the genetic basis of dissociation between mosses and their microbes is. His lab is currently focused on two projects: the evolutionary causes and consequences of dioecy and the community genomics of moss-associated nitrogen fixation in a changing Arctic. These questions are important because the maintenance of separate sexes (dioecy) is, as said by Dr. McDaniel, “an enduring evolutionary puzzle.” These questions and research projects are the stepping stones to answering questions about our own evolutionary processes and how we can manipulate data learned to benefit the greater

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