Ecological and evolutionary genomics of periodical cicadas
Periodical cicadas of the genus Magicicada exhibit a spectacular life-cycle phenomenon, with periodic mass emergence being observed every 13 or 17 years in the eastern United States. There are a number of questions to be solved for the ecology and evolution of periodical cicadas, concerning the mystery of life-cycle control and the evolutionary process leading to the divergence of three species groups with both 13- and 17-year life cycles and multiple broods encompassing all species groups. In this project, we use various genomic approaches, including whole genome assembly, resequencing, RNAseq, etc., to solve the questions.