Ana Caicedo

About

Ana Caicedo is a Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in Plant Molecular Evolution and Evolutionary Genomics. Her research aims to understand the genetic basis of adaptation and the population and genomic context in which adaptive evolution occurs. Her work spans disciplines including population genetics, molecular evolution, evolutionary ecology, phylogeography, and evolutionary genomics, focusing on loci contributing to traits of ecological or evolutionary importance and the processes governing diversification within and between closely related plant species. Her research involves studying model organisms such as Arabidopsis thaliana, wild relatives of crop species like Solanum spp. and Oryza spp., and domesticated plants including cultivated rice (O. sativa). She investigates the genes underlying adaptive traits, the distribution of variation at these genes, the evolutionary forces acting upon them, and their molecular signatures. Her work also explores the role of genomic context in the evolution of ecologically important genes. A particular focus is on the process of domestication, providing insights into rapid evolution and adaptive responses under strong selection, by comparing domesticated species with their wild and weedy relatives. Current projects include studying the molecular evolution of genes associated with weedy phenotypes in red rice and identifying genes involved in diversification and stress tolerance in the wild…

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Environmental planning
• Ecology
• Computational biology
• Agronomy
• Biotechnology
• Botany
• Evolutionary biology
• Environmental resource management

Selected publications

• Major Impacts of Widespread Structural Variation on Gene Expression and Crop Improvement in Tomato

  Cell · 2020 · 867 citations

  DOI

• Current status of community resources and priorities for weed genomics research

  Genome biology · 2024-05-27 · 36 citations

  articleOpen access

  Weeds are attractive models for basic and applied research due to their impacts on agricultural systems and capacity to swiftly adapt in response to anthropogenic selection pressures. Currently, a lack of genomic information precludes research to elucidate the genetic basis of rapid adaptation for important traits like herbicide resistance and stress tolerance and the effect of evolutionary mechanisms on wild populations. The International Weed Genomics Consortium is a collaborative group of sci…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Identification of Novel QTL Conferring Sheath Blight Resistance in Two Weedy Rice Mapping Populations

  Rice · 2020 · 33 citations

  BACKGROUND: recombinant inbred line populations generated from crosses of an indica crop variety, Dee-Geo-Woo-Gen (DGWG), with individuals representing the two major US weed biotypes, straw hull (SH) and black hull awned (BHA). RESULTS: We identified nine ShB resistance QTL across both mapping populations. Five were attributable to alleles that affect plant height (PH) and heading date (HD), two growth traits that are known to be highly correlated with ShB resistance. By utilizing an approach th…

  DOI

• Fungal effectors: past, present, and future

  Current Opinion in Microbiology · 2024-08-24 · 32 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Fungal effector proteins function at the interfaces of diverse interactions between fungi and their plant and animal hosts, facilitating interactions that are pathogenic or mutualistic. Recent advancements in protein structure prediction have significantly accelerated the identification and functional predictions of these rapidly evolving effector proteins. This development enables scientists to generate testable hypotheses for functional validation using experimental approaches. Research fronti…

  PublisherDOI

• Sharing and reporting benefits from biodiversity research

  Molecular Ecology · 2020 · 32 citations

  The most remarkable feature of our planet is the diversity of its life forms, ranging from viruses and nanobacteria to blue whales and giant sequoias to satanic leaf-tailed geckos and leafy seadragons (look them up!). Life is found in essentially all environments on earth, and the number of species living on our planet is many times greater than we could have imagined a century ago. A well-regarded estimate pegs the number of eukaryotic species on earth at 8.7 million (±1.3 million), of which fe…

  DOI

Recent grants

• Genomic Structure and Contemporary Evolution of Weediness in Red Rice

  NSF · $2.6M · 2010–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Kenneth M. Olsen

  Washington University in St. Louis

  56 shared

• Yulin Jia

  Harbin Medical University

  39 shared

• Michael D. Purugganan

  New York University Abu Dhabi

  38 shared

• Thomas P. Brutnell

  24 shared

• Todd C. Mockler

  Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

  20 shared

• David R. Gealy

  Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center

  20 shared

• Shao Jian Zheng

  East China University of Technology

  20 shared

• Richard Sibout

  Laboratoire D'étude des Résidus et Contaminants Dans les Aliments

  20 shared

Education

• B.S., Colombia

  Universidad de los Andes

  1996

• Ph.D., St. Louis

  Washington University

  2003

• Other

  North Carolina State University

  2003

Similar researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Bethany A. Bradleyh-60
• Tobias Baskinh-49
• Andy J. Danylchukh-46