Dr. Xiao (Peter) Yang, Postdoctoral Researcher with Allison Snow’s Lab, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology,
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Title: Evolutionary Impacts Caused by Transgene Flow into Rice Wild Relatives
Abstract: The potential ecological and evolutionary risks caused by transgene escape from crops to wild relative species through gene flow have aroused tremendous debates over environmental biosafety issues worldwide. Previous studies indicate that transgene flow frequencies and fitness effects are the keys to determining ecological consequences. In this seminar I will provide a short introduction to the status of GE crops in China, including crops and traits being grown widely and in the pipeline. After that, I will present a case study of fitness effect of transgenes in wild rice and weedy rice based on our long-term field research in China. The result revealed different ecological and evolutionary impact of transgenes in these species case-by-case. Findings from this study also provide insights about functional genes with a strong selective advantage on the adaptive evolution of wild relative species during the hybridization-introgression process.
Bio and Contact: Dr. Yang received a B.S. in Agriculture from the Zhejiang University, Hangzhou in 2006, and a Ph.D. in Botany from Fudan University, Shanghai in 2013. Dr. Yang can be contacted at 318 W. 12th Ave. 300 Aronoff Laboratory, Columbus, OH 43210, phone 614 292 8433, yang.3035@osu.edu; website with CV and publications:http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~asnowlab/home.html
Host: Dr. Allison Snow, snow.1@osu.edu
