Melania Cristescu

Education

Cristescu chose her career while examining aquatic habitats in the Danube Delta or exploring trails and caves of the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania during her childhood summer vacations. The French oceanographer and explorer Jacques Cousteau influenced her.

Early career

Cristescu earned her BSc Honors in Biology and a MSc in Ecology both at Ovidius University of Constanta in 1996, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology at the University of Guelph and was an NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellow at Indiana University. She then became an Associate Professor at the University of Windsor.

Research areas

Cristescu's area of research is ecological genetics and genomics and her primary research organism is Daphnia. Her other research areas include nature and scale of recombination and mutation rate variation across genomes, the genetics of aquatic invasions, and speciation in ancient lakes.

2012

1. Bock DG, MacIsaac HJ, Cristescu ME Tracking the evolution of invasiveness: multiple genetic analyses differentiate between widespread and spatially restricted cryptic species in a model ascidian. Proceedings of the Royal Society B:Biological Sciences, in press
2. Zhan A, Darling JA, Bock DG, Lacoursière-Roussel A, MacIsaac HJ, Cristescu ME Complex genetic patterns in closely related colonizing invasive species. Ecology and Evolution, in press
3. Cristescu ME, Constantin A, Bock DG, Cáceres CE, Crease TJ Speciation with gene flow and the genetics of habitat transitions in the Daphnia pulex species complex. Molecular Ecology, 21, 1411-22
4. Zhan A, Perepelizin P, Ghabooli S, Paolucci E, Sylvester F, Sardina P, Cristescu ME, MacIsaac HJ Scale-dependent post-establishment spread and genetic diversity in an invading mollusc in South America, Diversity and Distribution, DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2012.00894.x
5. Xu S, Schaack S, Seyfert A, Choi E, Lynch M, Cristescu ME High mutation rates in the mitochondrial genomes of Daphnia pulex. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 29, 763-769

2011

1. Millette KL, Xu S, Witt JDS and ME Cristescu Pleistocene-driven diversification in freshwater zooplankton: Genetic patterns of refugial isolation and postglacial re-colonization in Leptodora kindtii. Limnology and Oceanography, 56, 1725-1736
2. Bock DG, Zhan A, MacIsaac HJ and ME Cristescu Looking at both sides of the invasion: patterns of colonization in the violet tunicate Botrylloides violaceus. Molecular Ecology, 20, 503-516.
3. Xu S, Omilian A and ME Cristescu High rate of large-scale hemizygous deletions in asexually propagating Daphnia: Implications for the evolution of sex. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 28, 335-342.

2010

1. Cristescu ME, Adamowicz SJ, Vaillant J and GD Haffner Ancient lakes revisited: from the geography to the genetics of speciation. Molecular Ecology, 19, 4837-4851.
2. Lejeusne C, Bock D, MacIsaac HJ, Therriault TW and ME Cristescu Comparative phylogeography of colonial tunicates reveals contrasting patterns of invasion history in North America. Biological Invasions, doi:10.1007/s10530-010-9859-8.

2009

1. Xu S, PDN Hebert, AA Kotov and ME Cristescu The non-cosmopolitanism paradigm of freshwater zooplankton: Insights from the global phylogeography of the predatory cladoceran Polyphemus pediculus (Crustacea, Onychopoda). Molecular Ecology, 18: 5161-5179.
2. Cristescu ME and EE Egbosimba Evolutionary history of D-lactate dehydrogenases: a phylogenomic perspective on functional diversity in the Fad binding oxidoreductase type 4 family. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 69: 276-287.

2008

1. Cristescu ME, Innes DJ, Stillman JH and TJ Crease D- and L-lactate dehydrogenases during invertebrate evolution. BMC Evol. Biol. 8: 268.
2. Durbin A, Hebert PDN and ME Cristescu Comparative phylogeography of marine cladocerans: evidence for human mediated invasions. Marine Biology, 155: 1-10.
3. Sayfert AL, Cristescu ME, Thomas KW, Frisse L, Schaack S and M Lynch The rate and spectrum of microsatellite mutation in Caenorhabditis elegance and Daphnia pulex. Genetics, 178: 2113-2121.

2006

1. Omilian A, Cristescu ME, Dudycha J and M Lynch Ameiotic recombination in asexual lineages of Daphnia. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 103: 18638-18643.
2. Cristescu ME, Colbourne JK, Radivojac J, and M Lynch A microsatellite-based genetic linkage map for Daphnia pulex: On the prospect of crustacean genomics. Genomics, 88: 415-430.