About the Authors

Anuj Srivastava

anuj@uga.edu

Affiliation Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Liming Cai

Affiliations Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Department of Computer Science, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Jan Mrázek

Affiliations Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Department of Microbiology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Russell L. Malmberg

Affiliations Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Provided the initial idea of the evolutionary analysis: RLM. Primarily conducted the study: AS. Provided help with the RNA alignment and phylogenetic analysis: LC. Made a significant contribution to the principal components analysis: JM. Drafted the paper: AS. Edited the paper: LC JM. Completed the paper: AS RLM. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.