CREAF Talk with Guifré Torruella - "Reconstructing the tree of eukaryotes using phylogenomics"

TITLE: "Reconstructing the tree of eukaryotes using phylogenomics"

DATE: Thursday, 20th February 2025.

TIME & FORMAT: form 12 to 1pm CET - In-person and online.

Seminars will combine in-person and online formats (CREAF, Sala Graus II, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain) but in all cases, talks will be always streamed (not recorded), so they can be followed online.

HOW TO CONNECT: direct link to Guifré Torruella's conference.

SUMMARY OF THE WORKSHOP:

The emergence and initial diversification of eukaryotes marked the most radical transformation in cellular organization since the advent of life, giving rise to unprecedented biological complexity and the formation of new ecological niches that have shaped the Earth as we know it. However, reconstructing the evolutionary journey of eukaryotes, from their last common ancestor to the vast array of modern lineages, presents a considerable challenge. To comprehend the full scope of eukaryotic evolution, our studies must extend beyond multicellular organisms such as plants, animals, and fungi, and embrace the extensive diversity of unicellular life forms, collectively referred to as protists. In this presentation, I will discuss my research contributions to understanding the diversity and evolutionary patterns of various protist lineages, including their phylogenetic relationships within the broader context of eukaryotic evolution. I will provide insights into the phenomenon of convergent evolution among opisthokonts, introduce a new hypothesis regarding the origin of fungi, and share recent advancements in reconstructing the traits of our heterotrophic biflagellate ancestor. Through these discussions, we will explore the pivotal role of protists in our broader understanding of biological evolution. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Guifré Torruella is an evolutionary protistologist with a focus on the origin and diversification of unicellular eukaryotes. His research aims to uncover the diversity of understudied protists with key phylogenetic positions, enabling the exploration of macroevolutionary hypotheses. Through a multidisciplinary approach, he has studied multiple lineages, including opisthokonts, stramenopiles, rhizarians, archaeplastids, and various heterotrophic flagellates (e.g., ancyromonads, apusomonads, jakobids, malawimonads, and mantamonads). This work has led to the description of several new genera and species at both morphological and molecular levels, significantly enhancing our understanding of the eukaryotic tree of life.

He earned the PhD in Genetics from the Universitat de Barcelona and performed postdoctoral research at Paris-Saclay with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual fellowship, and at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center with a Beatriu de Pinós fellowship. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the Multicellgenome Lab, part of the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (UPF-CSIC).