awarded ISSF funding with Glasgow Polyomics

We have received a great little "Catalyst" award to do some sequencing with Glasgow Polyomics. The project is a pilot to examine phenotypic plasticity and gene expression in lab-reared freshwater fishes.

update 05-03-2013: Here's a photo of Oli and his fabulous tank layout for the charr and whitefish. Now the fry must grow and we must wait ...


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 in a collaboration with Amelie Crespel and Shaun Killen, we brought some genomics to an applied evolutionary question - is there evolutionary response to fisheries harvesting? We suspected that forces like size-selective harvest can have impact but what about environmental or demographic context? Open access paper here ! Crespel A, Schneider K, Miller T, Rácz A, Jacobs A, Lindström J, Elmer KR, Killen SS (2021) Genomic basis of fishing-associated selection varies with population density. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 118, e2020833118. Significance: Fisheries-associated selection is recognized as one of the strongest potential human drivers of contemporary evolution in natural populations. The results of this study show that while simulated commercial fishing techniques consistently remove fish with traits associated with growth, metabolism, and social behavior, the specific genes under fishing selection differ depending on the density of the targeted population. This finding suggest
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Welcome to new lab members!

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New paper: Functional genetic basis of reproductive mode

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Our paper on the genetic basis of parity mode is now published. The functional genetic architecture of egg-laying and live-bearing reproduction in common lizards H. Recknagel, M. Carruthers, A. Yurchenko, M. Nokhbatolfoghahai, N.A. Kamenos, M.M. Bain, K.R. Elmer Nature Ecology and Evolution 2021 SharedIt link:  https://rdcu.be/cy5S2 All amniotes reproduce either by egg-laying (oviparity), which is ancestral to vertebrates, or by live-bearing (viviparity), which has evolved many times independently. However, the genetic basis of these parity modes has never been resolved and consequently its convergence across evolutionary scales is currently unknown. Here we leveraged natural hybridisations between oviparous and viviparous common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) to describe the functional genes and genetic architecture of parity mode and its key traits, eggshell and gestation length, and compared our findings across vertebrates. In these lizards, parity trait genes were associated with prog
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