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Evolution Of Ecological Dominance Of Yeast Species In High-Sugar Environments, Kathryn Marie Williams

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two challenging goals of evolutionary biology are to understand how evolutionary innovations evolve and how they contribute to the success of lineages. Evolutionary innovations may arise following whole genome duplication (WGD) events and they are suspected to contribute to the success of lineages by creating ecological opportunity. However, direct evidence for duplicated genes involved in evolutionary innovations remains rare, and the relationship between evolutionary innovations and the success of lineages may be very complex. In this study, I explore the relationship of evolutionary innovation, WGD, and the ecological dominance of yeast species in high-sugar environments. In budding yeast, a major …