Gavin Douglas

Academic interests

• Pangenome evolution in prokaryotes
• Bioinformatics tool development
• Population genetics of microbes
• Microbial ecology and strain-level variation

Brief biography

I am seeking MSc and PhD students interested in joining my new group in the Department of Biology at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton campus. The earliest start date is September 2025.

My lab will primarily use bioinformatics approaches to explore the factors driving pangenome evolution in prokaryotes. This will build upon my recent work using pseudogenes as a neutral reference to investigate how rare genes evolve. A key question I am excited to explore is how to best estimate the relative importance of natural selection vs. genetic drift in prokaryotic populations to better inform such investigations.

We will also be working with collaborators to better understand the factors driving strain variation across a range of environmental samples (including ocean and lake water samples, as well as honey bee gut microbiome samples).

Lastly, we will develop bioinformatic tools to better identify putatively adaptive accessory genes and to aid microbial ecology analyses more generally. We will especially focus on developing approaches that incorporate genomes (both high-quality reference and metagenome-assembled genomes) into metagenomic analyses.

Note that I do not currently have funding to support postdoctoral researchers, but I would be happy to collaborate on Postdoctoral Fellowship applications. I will have funding for MSc and PhD students (but will also work with students to apply for grants and scholarships).

Selected research

Douglas, G. M., & Shapiro, B. J. (2024). Pseudogenes act as a neutral reference for detecting selection in prokaryotic pangenomes. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 8(2), 304–314.

Douglas, G. M., Hayes, M. G., Langille, M. G. I., & Borenstein, E. (2022). Integrating phylogenetic and functional data in microbiome studies. Bioinformatics, 38(22), 5055–5063.

Douglas, G. M., & Shapiro, B. J. (2021). Genic selection within prokaryotic pangenomes. Genome Biology and Evolution, 13(11), evab234.