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A Study Of Selection On Microsatellites In The Helianthus Annuus Transcriptome, Sreepriya Pramod

Theses and Dissertations

The ability of populations to continually respond to directional selection even after many generations instead of reaching response plateaus suggests the presence of mechanisms for rapidly generating novel adaptive variation within organismal genomes. The contributions of cis regulation are now being widely studied. This study details the contributions of one such mechanism capable of generating adaptive genetic variation through transcribed microsatellite mutation. Microsatellites are abundant in eukaryotic genomes, exhibit one of the highest known mutation rates; and mutations involve indels that are reversible. These features make them excellent candidates for generating variation in populations. This study explores the functional roles …