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I study molecular and genome evolution through a naturalist's eyes.

My main research topic so far has been mitochondrial biology and evolution, in particular mitochondrial inheritance, heteroplasmy, and mito-nuclear coevolution. The animal model of choice is bivalve molluscs, because of their unique features.

With time I realized that, in order to unveil the molecular basis of complex phenotypes and their evolution, it is necessary to sequence, study, and characterize genomes and their genetic diversity. I started working on comparative genomics (mostly of molluscs and ants), focusing on the variations in genome content and in genome structure.

In general, I am very interested in the evolutionary dynamics of conflicts and cooperation, and in the role of multilevel selection in the evolution of complex systems.

...See now how mitochondria and ants make sense here?

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Evolutionary biologist and zoologist at the University of Bologna. I started working on the evolution of centromeric repeated DNA in stick insects but rapidly moved to molecular phylogenetics and transposable elements evolution in insects and crustaceans. Presently, my main research interest concerns the study of molecular phylogenetics and phylogenomics, and evolutionary genomics in arthropods (crustaceans and insects) and in mollusks (mainly bivalves). More in particular, my research lines aim to understand the evolution of animal biodiversity (at species level or above) and of the evolution of characters (morphological and molecular) that characterize the different animal taxa. In these research lines, I have several collaborations with national and international research groups. 

At present, my main research projects concern: 

• Biodiversity genomics and molecular phylogenetics in insects (mainly termites, stick insects, and ants). 

• Evolutionary genomics in branchiopod crustaceans, with emphasis on morphological stasis, and in bivalve mollusks. 

• Evolution of genomes in parthenogenetic arthropods. 

For more Academic details and the full list of publications, check my personal website on Unibo:

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My research interests are mainly focused on germline specification and differentiation, and on the mechanisms of evolution and inheritance of mitochondria. 

Germline and mitochondrial inheritance are strictly linked, since the study of gamete formation is fundamental to understand which mitochondria are transmitted across generations. To do this, we use comparative approaches ranging from genomics to protein expression patterns in cells and tissues, to morphology, with particular attention to new animal model systems. 

As member of the National Biodiversity Future Center (PNRR), I would like to understand how animal longevity can evolve and how environment and lineage historical background can influence this complex phenotype. Also, the germline is a fundamental cell lineage for species maintenance and the study of its efficient development is of great importance for assessing survival of endangered species. 

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Giovanni is a researcher that studied Biological Sciences at the University of Bologna. His fascination with the diversity of forms and their continuous modification led him to focus his interests on the dynamics that undergo such captivating aspects of life. This resulted in the Master’s Degree in Biodiversity and Evolution, from which a PhD at the University of Bologna stemmed. During his experience, he managed to both cover different theoretical aspects of evolution and work with different tools to investigate them, from bioinformatics to “wet lab” techniques. He investigated the molecular evolution around the entangled evolutionary dynamics that lie behind the nuclear-mitochondrial co-assembly of the OXPHOS complexes, taking advantage of the highly divergent mitochondrial DNA of bivalve mollusks. While keeping an eye (and a foot) on mito-nuclear coevolution, his research topics later shifted toward the evolution of germline in animals. From large-scale metazoan-wide comparative analyses on germline transcriptomics and gene family evolution to narrow-scale investigation of germline determinants in selected species, he is interested in framing different angles of such cell lineage, whose evolution was a major step in establishing animal multicellularity.

Jacopo is an evolutionary biologist fascinated by how “forms” in the broadest sense can emerge and evolve. For his master's thesis, he studied the pattern of re-evolution of wings across phasmids applying phylogenetic comparative methods to a large and comprehensive phylogeny of stick insects. However, fascinated by the concept of “Evolution as a Molecular tinkerer” (Francis Jacob, 1977), he gradually started to become increasingly interested in how the genome and its component can (co)evolve. This inevitably led to a great interest in their “dark matter, ", particularly in transposable elements (TE) characterization and their underlying evolutionary dynamics. For his PhD, he is mainly working on TEs and other related genomic oddities that can be found in bivalve mollusks but he is also involved in genomics and comparative genomics projects in a wide diversity of organisms from insects to tadpole shrimps and bacteria. Despite having a pure biological background his interests forced him to face off with bioinformatics, from genome assemblies and annotations to Bash, Python, and R. However, one of his not-so-secret loves remains phylogenetics.

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Mariangela started her research activity in 2014, as a PhD student in the "Earth, Life and Environmental Sciences" Program at the University of Bologna, and she is currently continuing as a postdoc at the University of Bologna. 

Her research is mostly centered on different aspects of molecular evolution, particularly focusing on the inheritance and variability of the mitochondrial DNA populations and the co-evolution between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. While most of these studies have been conducted on mollusks, she also investigated molecular evolution, tissue characterization, and protein localization in other animal species, including fish and insects.

She is currently studying animal species characterized by extreme longevity, focusing her analyses on the identification of genes in which the selection strength has been intensified in long-lived species, and therefore exploring molecular factors and pathways that may have a role in lifespan extension in animals.  

Mariangela has a propensity for bioinformatics works, and she has experience in processing and investigating genomic and transcriptomic data, including assembly of genomes and transcriptomes, SNP calling, inference of rate of protein evolution, and differential expression. Anyway, if forced to, she can also be a lab person, and she has experience with molecular wet lab protocols, as well as immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry protocols.

Mariangela is always open to collaborations and to explore always different topics involved in any aspect of molecular evolution.

Giobbe is a biologist interested in understanding how traits evolve, especially in the interplay between the processes that happen at the phenotypical level and the underlying molecular one. He is equally fascinated by how traits are established and how they are lost, and in order to unravel the underlying processes, he leverages different analytical frameworks, including phylogenetic comparative methods, transcriptomics, and genomics. 

Even if he did not know what a phasmid was before starting his Ph.D., he grew an extreme fascination with their wing evolution: these structures are one of the more iconic instances in which a trait appears to have been lost in a common ancestor and may have been reacquired in some derived lineages. Here are some of the questions that keep him awake at night: can we consider the ancestral and derived wings homologous? What does homology even mean?! If wings have been reacquired for real, which extent of convergence can we observe in their evolution at the structural and molecular levels? Has pleiotropy anything to do with evolutionary convergence? What if wings disappeared as a macroscopical structure, but their developmental program is still well in place? 

While his major focus is on insects, he sometimes (i.e., often) takes extreme diversions. He spent quite some time studying microbes: he studied fungi as key players in highly complex trophic networks and genome evolution in prokaryote endosymbionts. He's also always up for a glass of wine.

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Filippo is an evolutionary biologist who has been fascinated by the animal world from a very young age. During high school, he became gradually interested in many other fields of biology, such as molecular and cell studies and, during his university years, he definitely settled into evolutionary and genome biology by getting a Master's degree in Biodiversity and Evolution. Filippo is now a Ph.D. student at the University of Bologna and is focusing on sex-determination-related genes of bivalve molluscs, with an attempt to understand their patterns of molecular evolution and genome dynamics. To this purpose, he’s making extensive use of comparative genomics methods and is (hardly) trying to integrate the bioinformatic approach with also wet lab techniques, such as karyology and in-situ hybridization of transcripts. Apart from bivalves, Filippo is also dealing with the comparative genomics and gene family evolution of other animal groups, such as stick insects and branchiopod crustaceans (which by the way he’s also trying to home-breed). Within his Ph.D. career, he would like to improve his ability to study the reciprocal interplay between the evolution of genomes and the evolution of complex traits, such as sex-determination mechanisms, reproductive modes, and morphological characater. Besides the academic position, Filippo is also involved in science dissemination and is one of the leaders of BioPills, an Italian community of young life scientists who talk about biological topics through web articles, webinars, and field trips.

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Simona, graduated in Agricultural Sciences with a specialization in Plant Genetic Improvement. From 2003 to 2018, she focused on screening germplasm collections, conducting genetic mapping, developing molecular markers, and identifying genes related to Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs). Simona also conducted functional genomics experiments to uncover the genes responsible for traits of interest. Since 2019, she has worked as a Laboratory Technician at the EVO·COM group, where she contributes with her expertise in genetics and functional genomics.