Dynamics, diversity and evolution of Baculoviruses

This thesis describes an innovative application of leading-edge bioinformatics and sequencing technology to analyse strain diversity, dynamics, and evolution in Baculoviruses under selection in vivo and in vitro. It provides evidence for the first time that these double-stranded DNA viruses are quasispecies. It develops and demonstrates a novel application of high-throughput sequencing and new computational techniques to analyse strain variants in non-model organisms, with potential applications in health, biosecurity and microbial ecology.