Ants, Bees, Genomes & Evolution @ Queen Mary University London
Experience
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2013-2018: PhD in Evolutionary Genetics at QMUL: the evolution of the fire ant's social chromosomes -
2018-2021: Postdoc at the University of Oxford, with Prof Peter Holland, on the evolution of recombination in gerbils -
2021-present: Postdoc at QMUL, on the fire ant's social chromosomes and the effects of pesticides of bee gene expression
Research interests
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Genome and chromosome evolution -
Population genetics -
Genetics of biodiversity
Skills and Experiences
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Bioinformatics and R -
Bioinformatics and R teaching in Oxford (2019-2020), QMUL (2013-2017) and at the Swiss Bioinformatics Institute (2016) -
Conference presentations including Biodiversity Genomics (2020), ESEB (2018), Evolution (2014 and 2018) the Population Genetics Group (2014-2016) -
Co-organiser of the London Evolutionary Research Network (2014-2016)
Publications
- Recurring adaptive introgression of a supergene variant that determines social organization. 2021. E Stolle, R Pracana, F López-Osorio, MK Priebe, GL Hernández, [...] Y Wurm. bioRxiv, doi: 10.1101/2021.04.11.439370 .
- Runaway GC evolution in gerbil genomes. 2020. R Pracana, AD Hargreaves, JF Mulley, PWH Holland. Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi: 10.1093/molbev/msaa072.
- Genomic architecture and evolutionary antagonism drive allele-specific expression in the social supergene of the red fire ant. 2020. C Martinez-Ruiz, R Pracana, E Stolle, CI Paris, RA Nichols, Y Wurm. eLife, doi: 10.7554/eLife.55862.
- Divergent genes in gerbils: origin, evolution and phenotypic relevance. 2020. Y Dai, R Pracana, PWH Holland. BMC Evolutionary Biology, doi: 10.1186/s12862-020-01696-3.
- Degenerative expansion of a young supergene. 2018. E Stolle, R Pracana, P Howard, CI Paris, SJ Brown, C Castillo-Carrillo, SJ Rossiter, Y Wurm. Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi: 10.1093/molbev/msy236.
- The fire ant social chromosome supergene variant Sb shows low diversity but high divergence from SB. 2017. R Pracana, A Priyam, I Levantis, RA Nichols, Y Wurm. Molecular Ecology, doi: 10.1111/mec.14054.
- Fire ant social chromosomes: Differences in number, sequence and expression of odorant binding proteins. 2017. R Pracana, I Levantis, C Martínez-Ruiz, E Stolle, A Priyam, Y Wurm. Evolution Letters, doi: 10.1002/evl3.22.
- The genomic and phenotypic diversity of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. 2015. DC Jeffares, C Rallis, A Rieux, D Speed, M Převorovský, T Mourier, FX Marsellach, Z Iqbal, W Lau, TMK Cheng, R Pracana, M Mülleder, JLD Lawson, A Chessel, S Bala, G Hellenthal, B O'Fallon, T Keane, JT Simpson, L Bischof, B Tomiczek, DA Bitton, T Sideri, S Codlin, JEEU Hellberg, L van Trigt, L Jeffery, JJ Li, S Atkinson, M Thodberg, M Febrer, K McLay, N Drou, W Brown, J Hayles, REC Salas, M Ralser, N Maniatis, DJ Balding, F Balloux, R Durbin, J Bähler. Nature genetics, 47 (3): 235-241.