Douglas G. Scofield

TL;DR: The draft assembly of the 20-gigabase genome of Norway spruce (Picea abies), the first available for any gymnosperm, is presented, revealing numerous long (>10,000 base pairs) introns, gene-like fragments, uncharacterized long non-coding RNAs and short RNAs, which opens up new genomic avenues for conifer forestry and breeding.

TL;DR: Intron size, abundance, and distribution in UTRs of genes using full-length cDNA libraries and complete genome sequences for four species, Arabidopsis thaliana, Drosophila melanogaster, human, and mouse are determined.

TL;DR: The Φ model of plant mating system evolution is proposed and test, which assumes that the per-generation mutation rate of a plant is a function of the number of mitoses that occur from zygote to gamete, and predicts fundamental differences between low-Φ (small-statured) and high- Φ (large-Statured) plants in the outcomes of the joint evolution of outcrossing rate and inbreeding depression.

TL;DR: This work uses whole-genome resequencing data to characterize and compare genome-wide patterns of nucleotide polymorphism, site frequency spectrum, and population-scaled recombination rates in three species of Populus: Populus tremula, P. tremuloides, and P. trichocarpa.

TL;DR: The results reveal a major effect locus that determines the timing of bud set and that has facilitated rapid adaptation to shorter growing seasons and colder climates in European aspen.