Author Description

The legume Trifolium pratense (red clover) is an important fodder crop and produces important secondary metabolites. This makes red clover an interesting species. In this thesis, the red clover genome is compared to the legume model species Medicago truncatula, of which the genome sequence is presented. We describe the red clover genome structure and compare it to the Medicago sequence. Thus is shown that although red clover and Medicago are closely related species, their genomes have diverged widely. Further analysis shows that much of the divergence is unique to red clover, not occurring in other clover species. By zooming in on a single rearrangement, a transposable element is found that occurs within the breakpoint region and is widely distributed in the red clover genome, but not in related clover species. Therefore we predict that this transposable element has been involved in the red clover genome rearrangement.