Leader of Computational Biology and Population Genomics - CoBiG2

Octávio S. Paulo

Assistant Professor

I received a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from the University of London in 2001 and I am currently leading the Computational Biology and Population Genomics Group (cobig2.com) of cE3c. I am a professor of Evolutionary Biology and Genomics at the University of Lisbon. My research focuses on Phylogenetics, Phylogeography and Populations Genomics and Association studies of several types or organism mainly West -Mediterranean Trees, Insects and Lizards.  

For many years I have been involved in West-Mediterranean Phylogeography   research using traditional molecular markers, several years ago I started using genomics to study species and populations divergences but also to carry out genome wide associations studies and genome environmental associations, which I intend to continue doing s my main research area.

I was a member of the COEC – Cork Oak  EST Consortium (coec.fc.ul.pt), member of the Food Farm and Forest College.  I am also the co-coordinator of the Master In Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (bbc.fc.ul.pt).

Currently the mentioned approaches of the several disciplines are used in different combinations for the study of natural populations of one species or several evolutionary close species, namely: i) on the study of genetic structure and adaptation of the species of the genus Quercus, the Cork Oak and the Holm Oak, with implications for the adaptation of the species to climatic changes and on the productivity of the “montado” system; ii) on the study of the genetic structure and introgression of Bombus, as a measure of the genomic consequences of commercial releases of pollinators used in greenhouses; iii) on the study of the differentiation pattern of several genera of Western Mediterranean Butterflies and the relation of some of these species with their host plants; iv) on the study of the genomics of the ecological speciation of lizards; v) on the study of the origin, evolution and molecular causes of the virulence of coffee rust disease.