Mark Dowton Position:   Senior Lecturer Room:     Phone No:   +61 2 4221 5653 Email:   mdowton@uow.edu.au Lab/other loc:     Lab Phone:
PPT Presentation : (I. Explorer recommended) The Hymenoptera – The Evolution of Parasitoid Biologies and Their Mitochondrial Genomes

Research Interests

Molecular evolution

Lifestyle transitions among parasitoids

Mitochondrial gene rearrangements

 

Representative Publications

- You may need a subscription to access the pdf links below.  Email the author for hardcopy reprints -

 

M Dowton and AD Austin (1994) Molecular phylogeny of the insect order Hymenoptera: Apocritan relationships.  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91: 9911-9915;
http://intl.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/91/21/9911

M Dowton and AD. Austin (1999) Evolutionary dynamics of a mitochondrial rearrangement "hot spot" in the Hymenoptera.  Mol. Biol. Evol. 16: 298-309;
http://www.molbiolevol.org/cgi/reprint/16/2/298

M Dowton and NJH Campbell (2001) Intramitochondrial recombination – is it why some mitochondrial genes sleep around. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16: 269-271;
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journals

M Dowton and AD Austin (2001) Simultaneous analysis of 16S, 28S, COI and Morphology in the Hymenoptera: Apocrita – evolutionary transitions among parasitic wasps. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 74: 87-111;
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journals

M Dowton and AD Austin (2002) Increased congruence does not necessarily indicate increased phylogenetic accuracy – the behavior of the incongruence length difference test in mixed-model analyses. Syst. Biol. 51: 19-31;
http://www.sysbio-online.com/

More Publications (PDF 84k)

Searchable Publication List

 

Current Students

PhD students

Lyda Castro: Molecular evolution of the hymenopteran mitochondrial genome

James Bower: Concerted evolution and the role of molecular drive

Leigh Nelson: Molecular identification and thermobiology of blowflies of forensic importance

Louise Puslednik: Molecular phylogeny of lymnaeid snails

 

Suggested Topics for Future Students

Challenging the purely clonal model of inheritance of the animal mitochondrial genome

What are the biological and molecular evolutionary correlates of mitochondrial recombination in animals

Complete mitochondrial genome sequencing, and phylogenetic reconstruction, of the Hymenoptera

See Also the Honours Topics Page

 

Abbreviated CV

Academic Degrees

1983 BSc (Hons), Sydney University

1987 PhD, Sydney University

Current/Recent Research Grants

ARC Linkage (2004-2006): Molecular identification of blowflies of forensic importance and thermal effects on their behaviour: tools to enhance forensic entomology in Australia

ARC Discovery (2005-2007): The evolution of multipartite mitochondrial genomes in the cyst-forming nematodes

ARC Discovery (2005-2007): Structural reorganization of the hymenopteran mitochondrial genome