Luciano Matias Matzkin

Luciano Matias Matzkin

Associate Professor, Entomology
Associate Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Associate Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 621-1955

Work Summary

Understanding how genes and genomes are shaped over many generations by the environment in which organisms live in. We also aim to examine how these changes accumulate and might facilitate the genetic divergence between populations and eventually possibly the origin of species. Lastly we aim to leverage the power of genomics to understand the evolution of insecticide resistance in agricultural pests and to find solution to their management.

Research Interest

Our lab investigates how the ecology of a species shapes patterns of variation at multiple levels (genes, pathways, transcriptomes, genomes, physiology, behavior and life history), how populations adapt to environmental shifts (natural or human created), how genetic architecture can dictate the evolutionary trajectory of populations, the implication of ecological adaptation in the process of speciation and the role of sexual selection and sexual conflict in the evolution of reproductive incompatibilities. Our research revolves around these fundamental aspects of evolutionary biology. We work on a group of cactophilic Drosophila that inhabit the deserts of North America. These Drosophila species are an excellent system to study given that their ecology is well understood and the fact that we can perform many genetic, genomic, manipulative and life history experiments. In addition to utilizing the cactophilic Drosophila system we have ongoing projects on the agrigenomics of the agricultural pests, Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing Drosophila) and Helicoverpa zea (corn earworm). Keywords: Evolutionary, ecological and agricultural genomics

Publications

Allan, C. W., Diaz-Gonzalez, F., & Matzkin, L. M. (2018). Adaptive amino acid evolution at odorant and gustatory receptors associated with host adaptation in cactophilic Drosophila. BMC Evolutionary Biology.
Matzkin, L. M., Johnson, S., Paight, C., Bozinovic, G., & Markow, T. A. (2011). Dietary Protein and Sugar Differentially Affect Development and Metabolic Pools in Ecologically Diverse Drosophila. Journal of Nutrition, 141(6), 1127-1133.
Matzkin, L. M. (2008). The Molecular Basis of Host Adaptation in Cactophilic Drosophila: Molecular Evolution of a Glutathione S-Transferase Gene (GstD1) in Drosophila mojavensis. Genetics, 178(2), 1073-1083.
Song, X., Goicoechea, J. L., Ammiraju, J., Luo, M., He, R., Lin, J., Lee, S., Sisneros, N., Watts, T., Kudrna, D. A., Golser, W., Ashley, E., Collura, K., Braidotti, M., Yu, Y., Matzkin, L. M., McAllister, B. F., Markow, T. A., & Wing, R. A. (2011). The 19 Genomes of Drosophila: A BAC Library Resource for Genus-Wide and Genome-Scale Comparative Evolutionary Research. Genetics, 187(4), 1023-1030.
Lang, M., Murat, S., Clark, A. G., Gouppil, G., Blais, C., Matzkin, L. M., Guittard, E., Yoshiyama-Yanagawa, T. .., Kataoka, H., Niwa, R., Lafont, R., Dauphin-Villemant, C. .., & Orgogozo, V. (2012). Mutations in the neverland Gene Turned Drosophila pachea into an Obligate Specialist Species. Science, 337(6102), 1658-1661.