Dr. Mat Goddard

Senior Lecturer

Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour

Phone: 3737599 ext 89537
Thomas Building, Level 3, Rm 330C
Email: m.goddard@auckland.ac.nz

Research Interests

• Experimental evolution (with yeast)
  
• Understanding the mechanisms of adaptation
  
• Wild and wine yeast ecology
  
• The maintenance of sex
  
• Selfish genetic elements and other consequences of sex
  
• Indigenous wine fermentation dynamics, and yeast species interactions
  
• Wine science
  
• Other applications of yeast (e.g. Bioethanol production)
  

I am always interested to hear from students wishing to pursue research in any of the above areas. Please contact me via email and include a CV.

Why I am a research biologist...

I find the workings of the natural world wonderfully curious and am constantly amazed by the adaptations that organisms display. I find studying biology from the population perspective to be very informative since one can simultaneously consider both the ecological and evolutionary forces which shape a population's genetic pool. The corner-stone of ecology and evolution is Natural Selection. Ecology attempts to determine how and why there is differential survival within and between populations while evolution attempts to predict the consequences of this differential survival and how this in turn effects a population’s genetic structure. One of the things I am interested in is trying to understand the underlying biological rules that apply to all populations, the forces that shape all populations, in a sense I am keen to approach the subject from a general perspective. For this reason I mostly work with microbes, yeasts to be exact (Ascomycetes, mostly Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Large populations can be maintained within the laboratory and one may pass them through many generations before the experimenter dies of old-age! Yeasts have the advantage of being eukaryotic, which means their cellular structure and DNA are organised in the same way as all higher organisms; yeast even have sex. One of the massive advantages of working with yeast is that a huge amount is known about the molecular biology of the yeast cell. The whole genome has been sequenced, we know the function of over one third of its genes, and we are beginning to understand how the 6,000 plus genes interact. These facts, to my mind, make yeast an excellent model organism for population genetic studies.

I am also interested in the ecology of natural yeasts and especially yeasts involved in winemaking. I find this interesting for at least two reasons. Firstly, this subject captures my interest because of the long and close association between humans and the fermentation process and my enjoyment of wine. Secondly, a large amount of our understanding about the way cells are constructed and work has been elucidated using yeast, yet we know little of the every day ecological forces which subtly shape the yeast genome.

Recent Publications

• 2008 Anfang, N, Brajkovich, M and Goddard, M R. Co-fermentation with Pichia kluyveri increases varietal thiol concentrations in Sauvignon blanc. The Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. In press.
• 2008 Serjeant, K, Tang, R, Anfang, N, Beggs, J and Goddard, M R. Yeasts associated with the New Zealand Nothofagus honeydew systems. New Zealand Journal of Ecology32(2): In press.
• 2008 Jun, C, Serjeant, K, Brajkovich, M and Goddard, M R. The effects of temperature on yeast species composition during ferment. The Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower and Winemaker 2008 Annual Technical Issue: 88-92.
• 2008 Goddard, M R. Quantifying the complexities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae’s ecosystem engineering via fermentation. Ecology 89(8):2077-2082
• 2006 Goddard, M R, Leigh, J, Roger, A J and Pemberton, A J. Invasion and persistence of a selfish gene in the Cnidaria. PLoS ONE 1(1): e3.
• 2005 Goddard,M R, Godfray, H J C, and Burt, A. Sex increases the efficiency of natural selection in experimental yeast populations. Nature, 434:636-640
• 2004 Johnson, L, Koufopanou, V, Goddard, M R, Hetherington, R and Burt, A. Population genetics of the wild yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus. Genetics 166:43-52
• 2003 Goddard, M R and Bradford, M A. The adaptive response of a natural microbial population to carbon- and nitrogen-limitation. Ecology Letters 6:594-598.
• 2002 Koufopanou, V, Goddard, M R and Burt, A. Adaptation for horizontal transfer in a homing endonuclease. Molecular Biology and Evolution 19: 239-246.
• 2001 Goddard, M R, Greig, D and Burt, A. Outcrossed sex allows a selfish gene to invade yeast populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London: B. 268:2537-2542.
• 1999 Goddard, M R and Burt, A. Recurrent invasion and extinction of a selfish gene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA96(24):13880-13885.

Selected Recent Publications