It is based on discoveries in molecular biology, and is concerned with reconstruction of phylogenies using protein or DNA data, and with understanding the processes and dynamics that shape the genome at a molecular level.
TEs are sequences of DNA that can move from site to site in the genome of an organism.
They can cause mutations when they do so, and their movement can be replicative, so that they spread infectively within a sexual population. They can also spread from one species to another, albeit rarely. TEs have evolutionary consequences, especially as mutators, and their genomic and population dynamics are not well understood. I am studying various TEs in the laboratory fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster . The P element can cause a variety of drastic effects when it is mobilized, and, since it seems to have only invaded D. melanogaster within the last 50 years, its dynamics are active in natural populations around the world.