Molecular Evolution of the Mitochondrial DNA in Animals

Dear Colleagues,

The mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) is a compact molecule, usually containing a conserved set of (37) genes, that occurs in multiple copies within the mitochondria of most multicellular organisms. Despite recent progress in the sequencing and analysis of nuclear genomes, mitogenomes still play a crucial role in the study of both non-bilaterian and bilaterian animal evolution, with the greatest impacts in the fields of molecular phylogeny, population genomics, and genome evolution.

The popularity of mitogenomes is largely due to the relatively simple procedure to extract, amplify, and sequence the complete mtDNA from animal tissues, and to the substantial conservation of its gene content, a required feature necessary to compare multiple evolutionary lineages.

This Special Issue of Genes will cover all aspects of biogeography, phylogenetics, and genome evolution in key, as well as less known, taxa based on the comparison of mitochondrial DNA data. Studies on large sets of mtDNA sequences are welcome, as well as meta-analyses on genomic features (e.g., nucleotide composition, codon bias, and gene order) focusing on specific lineages of the animal kingdom. This Special Issue is especially dedicated to collecting new data from researchers that have contributed to the investigation of the systematics, diversity, and molecular evolution of animal lineages using mitogenomic data.

Prof. Antonio Carapelli
Prof. Francesco Nardi
Guest Editors

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