个人简介

I am fascinated by biological diversity, and by the simultaneous operation of adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary processes within organisms, populations, and lineages. Sex, with all its complexities, encompasses all of these interests. In particular, I am interested in using comparisons of sexual and asexual individuals, lineages, and genomes to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of sexuality, evolutionary constraints that limit asexual success, and why sex persists in some natural populations but not others.

研究领域

Why is sexual reproduction so common?
Sexual females produce both sons and daughters, while asexual females make only daughters. Because only females produce offspring, this "cost of males" predicts that sex should be rare because asexual females will leave many more descendants than will sexual females. In reality, however, sex predominates. Despite years of study, why sex is so common remains unclear, and is considered one of the most important unanswered questions in evolutionary biology. A clear understanding of the advantages of sex, which is distinguished from asexuality by the production of genetically variable offspring, is also of direct relevance to understanding the value of preserving genetic diversity within and among populations, species, and ecological communities. More broadly, our research program is relevant to scientists who use our snail study system as a model for ecotoxicology and host-parasite coevolution as well as those studying the causes and consequences of biological invasions. Our lab group is also very committed to mentoring and community engagement, and we are involved in a variety of such efforts, from regular collaborations with 10th grade Biology students at a local high school to the development and testing of a genomics module for a national high school computer science curriculum to our central role in organizing the annual Iowa City Darwin Day celebrations.

Evolution

近期论文

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Maïté S. Guignard, Andrew R. Leitch, Claudi Acquisti, Christophe Eizaguirre, James J. Elser, 5, Dag O. Hessen, Punidan D. Jeyasingh, Maurine Neiman, Alan E. Richardson, Pamela S. Soltis, Doug E. Soltis, Carly J. Stevens, Mark Trimmer, Laurence J. Weider, Guy Woodward, & Ilia J. Leitch. 2017. Impacts of nitrogen and phosphorus: from genomes to natural ecosystems and agriculture. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, in press. doi: https://10.3389/fevo.2017.00070 Maurine Neiman, Curtis M. Lively, & Stephanie Meirmans. 2017. Why sex? A pluralist approach revisited. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, in press. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2017.05.004 Laura A. Bankers, Peter Fields, Kyle E. McElroy, Jeffrey L. Boore, John M. Logsdon, Jr., & Maurine Neiman. 2017. Genomic evidence for population-specific responses to coevolving parasites in a New Zealand freshwater snail. Molecular Ecology, in press. doi: 10.1111/mec.14146 Kyle E. McElroy, Robert D. Denton, Joel Sharbrough, Laura Bankers, Maurine Neiman, H. Lisle Gibbs. 2017. Genome expression balance in a triploid trihybrid vertebrate. Genome Biology and Evolution 9: 968. doi: doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evx059 Joel Sharbrough, Jennifer L. Cruise, Megan Beetch*, Nicole M. Enright*, & Maurine Neiman. 2017. Genetic variation for mitochondrial function in the New Zealand freshwater snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum. Journal of Heredity, in press. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esx041 Laura A. Bankers & Maurine Neiman. 2017. De novo transcriptome characterization of a sterilizing trematode parasite (Microphallus sp.) from two species of New Zealand snails. G3 7: 871. doi: http://doi.org/10.1534/g3.116.037275 Maurine Neiman, Margaret J. Beaton, Dag O. Hessen, Punidan D. Jeyasingh, & Lawrence J. Weider. 2017. Endopolyploidy as a potential driver of animal ecology and evolution. Biological Reviews 92: 234. doi: 10.1111/brv.12226