Steve is studying the evolution of dosage compensation in Drosophila miranda's neo-sex chromosome system. What is the extent of dosage compensation in D. miranda? How does dosage compensation arise along the neo-X chromosome? Is there a link between dosage compensation and the evolution of male-biased gene expression? Steve is addressing these question (and more) by employing whole transcriptome RNA-sequencing combined with gene-by-gene TaqMan qRT-PCR expression assays and ChIP-PCR binding assays.

Steven Lockton

Education
Postdoctoral scholar, University of California, Berkeley September 2008 – present
Advisor: Prof. Doris Bachtrog
Ph.D., University of California, Irvine October 2003 – August 2008
Advisor: Prof. Brandon S. Gaut
B.Sc. (Hons.) Genetics, University of Wales, Cardiff September 1996 – June 2000

Publications
Lockton S, Gaut BS (2009). The Evolution of Transposable Elements in Natural Populations of
Self-Fertilizing
Arabidopsis thaliana and its Outcrossing Relative Arabidopsis lyrata.
Submitted to
BMC Evolutionary Biology. In revision.
Bachtrog D, Toda N, Lockton S (2009). Dosage compensation and demasculinization of X
chromosomes in Drosophila. Submitted to
PloS Biology
Lockton S, Gaut BS (2009). The Contribution of Transposable Elements to Expressed Coding
Sequence in
Arabidopsis thaliana. Journal of Molecular Evolution. 2009 68: 80-89
Lockton S, Ross-Ibarra J, Gaut BS (2008). Demography and weak selection drives patterns of
transposable element diversity in natural populations of
Arabidopsis lyrata. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences USA
105: 13965-13970
Lockton S, Gaut BS (2005). Plant conserved non-coding sequences and paralogue evolution.
Trends in Genetics 21: 60 –65
MacDonald C, Brookes CP, Edwards KJ, Baker D, Lockton S & Loxdale HD (2003).
Microsatellite isolation and characterization in the beneficial parasitoid wasp Diaeretiella
rapae
(Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Aphidiinae). Molecular Ecology Notes 3: 601-603

Presentations
June 2009 – Contributed poster, Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution meeting, Iowa City,
Iowa: Evolution of Dosage Compensation in
Drosophila miranda
June 2007 – Contributed talk, Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution meeting, Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada: Population Genetics of
Arabidopsis Transposable Elements
March 2007 – Invited speaker, University of California San Diego, section of Ecology, Behavior,
and Evolution seminar series: Evolutionary Genetics of
Arabidopsis Transposable Elements
October 2006 – Contributed talk, UCI Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Graduate Student Symposium: The contribution of Transposable Elements to expressed
coding sequence in
Arabidopsis thaliana

Awards
UC Irvine Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship 2008
UC Irvine GAANN Fellowship Award 2007
UC Irvine GAANN Fellowship Award 2006
UC Irvine William D. Redfield Graduate Fellowship Award 2006

Teaching
Guest Lecturer, University of California, Irvine
• Spring 2008:
Genes in populations and the Hardy-Weinberg Law in Bio E137 - Genetics
of Complex Traits
• Fall 2007 & Winter 2008:
Bacteria & Viruses in Bio 1a - Introduction to Life Sciences
• Spring 2006:
Transposable Elements in Bio138 - Advanced Evolutionary Biology
Teaching Assistant, University of California, Irvine 2003-2008
• Bio 7 – Biostatistics
• Bio 135 - Molecular Evolution
• Bio 115 - Laboratory Evolution
• Bio 1a - Introduction to Life Sciences
• Bio 94 - Organisms to Ecosystems
• EE 208 - Organismal Biology
• Bio 94 - Processes in Ecology and Evolution
• Bio 100 - Experimental Biology Laboratory