Annual Report 2013
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Annual Report 2013 ANNUAL REPORT 2013 Produced by: Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF) CMIMA building: Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain PRBB building: Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain Scientific coordinator and layout: Carles Lalueza-Fox Technical coordinator and layout: Anna Pérez-Lezaun Text and photography: IBE Researchers Graphic design: Carme Franch and Rosa Romeu Printing: Marc-Martí www.ibe.upf-csic.es © IBE 2014 Member of: INDEX FOREWORD ........................................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION TO THE IBE ......................................................................................................... 7 Scope and general goals .......................................................................................................... 7 General structure ........................................................................................................................ 8 Scientific structure ..................................................................................................................... 10 IBE organisation chart .............................................................................................................. 11 Service units .............................................................................................................................. 12 Personnel ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Localisation ................................................................................................................................. 15 IBE RESEARCH PROGRAMS .......................................................................................................... 17 ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND EVOLUTION PROGRAM .......................................................19 Beetle evolution | Ignacio Ribera, Group leader .......................................................................................... 20 Butterfly diversity and evolution | Roger Vila, Group leader .................................................................................................. 26 Phylogeny and phylogeography of mammals | José Castresana, Group leader ....................................................................................... 30 Systematics, biogeography and evolution of reptiles and amphibians | Salvador Carranza, Group leader ................................................................................... 34 COmpaRATIVE AND COMPUTATIONAL GENOMICS PROGRAM ..................................41 Comparative genomics | Tomàs Marquès-Bonet, Group leader ............................................................................ 42 Evolutionary and functional genomics | Josefa González, Group leader ....................................................................................... 48 Evolutionary genomics | Arcadi Navarro, Group leader ........................................................................................... 54 Paleogenomics | Carles Lalueza-Fox, Group leader .................................................................................. 61 Annual Report 2013 | 3 COMPLEX SYSTEMS PROGRAM ................................................................................................67 Complex systems | Ricard Solé, Group leader ................................................................................................ 68 Language evolution | Luc Steels, Group leader .................................................................................................. 72 FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS AND EVOLUTION PROGRAM ................................................77 Evolution and developmental biology | Xavier Franch-Marro, Group leader ................................................................................ 78 Insect physiology and molecular biology | Xavier Bellés, Group leader ............................................................................................. 86 Insect reproduction | Maria-Dolors Piulachs, Group leader ............................................................................. 94 Multicellgenome | Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo, Group leader ......................................................................................... 98 POPULATION GENETICS PROGRAM ..................................................................................... 103 Evolutionary population genetics | Elena Bosch, Group leader ........................................................................................... 104 Evolutionary systems biology | Jaume Bertranpetit, Group leader .............................................................................. 108 Genomics of individuality | Francesc Calafell, Group leader ................................................................................... 114 Human genome: diversity and adaptation | David Comas, Group leader ......................................................................................... 118 SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS ....................................................................................................... 125 IBE HIGHLIGHTED PAPERS ......................................................................................................... 141 Genetic diversity and population history in humans and great apes and selection for duplicated sequences .............................................................................. 141 Demographic, linguistic and cultural crossroads in the Mediterranean revealed by genetic analyses ................................................................................................. 142 The genome of Capsaspora owczarzaki reveals that the unicellular ancestor of Metazoa was genetically complex ................................................................... 144 Together in Health and Sickness: Europeans and East Asians share risk alleles for the most prevalent complex diseases ........................................................ 145 bantam miRNA promotes systemic growth by connectin insuling signaling and ecdysteoid production ................................................................................... 147 On the origins of hierarchy in complex networks ......................................................... 148 THESES, COURSES AND SEMINARS ...................................................................................... 151 Doctoral theses presented during 2013 ......................................................................... 151 IBE seminars 2013 ................................................................................................................. 153 Teaching .................................................................................................................................... 156 DISSEMINATION OF SCIENCE ................................................................................................. 159 IBE IN NUMBERS ............................................................................................................................ 165 4 | Institut de Biologia Evolutiva FOREWORD by Xavier Bellés, Director of the IBE So, that like produces like is the oldest biological observation. What science has accomplished is to tell us that this happens because organisms contain genes in them and that the future organism is written in this somehow. And ‘somehow’ is what we have to explain. We have to say not somehow, but how. Sydney Brenner, My life in science (2001) In February 2013, I received a manuscript letter from Sydney Brenner announcing that he was going to attend the 8th European Zebrafish Meeting, which would take place in Barcelona the second week of July, and asking whether he could take advantage of the trip to visit the IBE. This was a great surprise and a great joy for us, and obviously I invited him to visit our Institute, what he did on 10 July 2013. This was a happy coincidence because the IBE was formally founded on 16 July 2008, and thus the visit of Prof. Brenner roughly coincided with our 5th anniversary, as if it were an unexpected and wonderful present. The visit was first a privilege but also a great pleasure. Bright and restless, he made us think again about the challenges of present science (how to convert “somehow” into “how”) and about our job of scientific researchers. We realized that most, practically all of us, gradually lose our enthusiasm along our career, as if it were a kind of ontogenetic development. As young graduate students, we are energetic, resourceful, open minded, and full of ideas, and even bright. However, time runs against (most of) these qualities, and only a few privileged minds are able to keep an age of, say, a 20-year old somewhere in a hiding place of the brain and heart. These singular people are never bound by dominant disciplinary paradigms, and continue questioning the existing information in order to produce new understanding through creative discovery. Annual Report 2013 | 5 These privileged scientists produce breakthrough science and enlarge the field of knowledge in unexplored conceptual territories during their entire careers and lives. Sydney Brenner showed us again that he is one of the best living examples of this attitude. I said before that the IBE is just 5 years old. At this age, children have a longer attention span, talk a lot, ask many questions, want real