Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

0009-0001-6687-1576

Advisor

Hoffmann, Federico

Committee Member

Dapper, Amy

Committee Member

Smith, Megan

Date of Degree

8-12-2026

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Computational Biology

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

Office of Academic Affairs

Department

Computational Biology Program

Abstract

Meiotic recombination is the exchange of DNA between homologous chromosomes that creates novel allele combinations and therefore aids in evolution. After whole genome duplications (WGD), challenges arise with proper chromosome segregation, necessitating changes to the meiotic recombination pathway. Reducing recombination rate and recombination gene copy number are mechanisms to correct multivalent formation. Within plants, copy number and retention rate of these genes has been well characterized; however, this is untrue for the wider eukaryote domain. Through this work, I show that meiotic recombination genes are maintained at a lower copy number than the rest of the genome; however, immediately after they are duplicated (or have their copy number artificially increased) via mechanisms besides WGDs, there appears to be no negative fitness consequences.

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