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Siobain Duffy
Study systems include
Cystoviruses
Geminiviruses (Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus; East African Cassava Mosaic Virus)
ssDNA bacteriophages
Selected publications
Duffy S, Shackleton LA & Holmes EC (2008) Rates of evolutionary change in viruses: patterns and determinants. Nature Reviews Genetics 9, 267-276
Duffy S & Holmes EC (2008) Phylogenetic evidence for rapid rates of molecular evolution in the single-stranded DNA Begomovirus Tomato yellow leaf curl virus into the New World. Journal of Virology 82: 957-965.
Duffy S & Holmes EC (2007) Multiple introductions of the Old World Begomovirus Tomato yellow leaf curl virus into the New World. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 73: 7114-7117.
Duffy S, Burch CL & Turner PE (2007) Evolution of host specificity drives reproductive isolation among RNA viruses. Evolution 61: 2614-2622
Duffy S, Turner PE & Burch CL (2006) Pleiotropic costs of niche expansion in an RNA virus. Genetics, 172: 1-7.
Duffy S & Schaffner DW (2002) Modeling the environmental contamination of apples with Escherichia coli O157:H7. International Journal of Food Microbiology 78: 245-255
Research interests
I am interested in understanding how emerging viruses create and maintain genetic diversity and how they adapt to novel environments. I am also interested in how genomic architecture (i.e. RNA or DNA genome, size of genome) and ecological history constrain future evolution. My specific interests include:
- Experimental evolution
- The relative importance of mutation and recombination in the evolution of small DNA viruses
- The nucleotide substitution rate of Geminiviruses, ssDNA plant viruses which are devastating crop pathogens.
- The evolution of segmentation in RNA and DNA viruses
