Charles F. Aquadro

The paper investigates the conservation of essential germline stem cell genes across Drosophila species, finding that the function of bam is conserved in D. americana but not in D. teissieri, and that ~8% of GSC genes show absence across species.

The paper compares the structural evolution of Bam and Bgcn proteins across Drosophila species, finding little structural divergence despite sequence differences and suggesting functional divergence may be due to compensatory changes.

The paper tests whether the bam gene's function in germline stem cell differentiation is conserved across Drosophila species, finding that its necessity varies among species.

The paper evaluates a buffering mechanism for deleterious mutations and shows it leads to lower adaptive fixation rates and reduced MK test power compared to an arms race model.

The paper tests how different Wolbachia pipientis wMel variants rescue fertility defects in Drosophila melanogaster with a bam hypomorphic mutation.