Elmer Lab

*Postdoc Opportunity Open to 7 March 2016* We have an excellent opportunity for a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine (IBAHCM) in the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences (MVLS), working in the Evolutionary Analysis Group and the research team of Kathryn Elmer (http://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/bahcm/staff/kathrynelmer/). We are seeking a motivated, creative and enthusiastic postdoctoral researcher for a project on ‘major evolutionary transitions’. The primary research effort will be on a NERC-funded project studying the molecular and genomic mechanisms underlying different reproductive modes (live-bearing vs egg-laying) in squamate lizards. Complementary projects on speciation, evolution and genomics in ‘ichs and herps’ are also possible. Bioinformatic experience and expertise in whole genome analysis and NGS data is imperative, ideally with relevant experience contributing t...

Can colour affect ecology and evolution, even within species? A recent publication of Kathryn Elmer with colleagues in University of Konstanz and the International Max Planck Research School found significant consequences of a colour dimorphism across ten populations of neotropical cichlid fishes. Named for King Midas, these Midas cichlid fishes are found in only two colour forms — all fishes start their life dark but in many species 5-20% of individuals lose their melanophores before adulthood and then become completely 'gold'. We found sympatric black- or gold-coloured individuals differed consistently in their ecology and morphology. Gold fishes were more typically ’snail-eaters’ and inhabit a lower trophic level, and this has some genetic basis. H Kusche, KR Elmer & A Meyer, "S ympatric ecological divergence associated with a colour polymorphism ” is published in the open access journal BMC Biology. doi:10.1186/s12915-015-0192-7 This was led by Ph...

A new PhD position is available in our group starting October 2016, which would be awarded through the competitive MVLS-Doctoral Training Programme . Please see our " Opportunities " page.  Project: Comparative ecological genomics of environmental heterogeneity PhD Project Summary: Intrinsic factors such as genetics and extrinsic factors such as environment both influence a population’s contemporary patterns of diversity and adaptive potential. Quantifying the relative influence of those various factors is a major effort in biology,; it is fundamental to the mechanisms behind, the speed of, and the potential for evolution. Such patterns and processes have major implications for a range of issues in biomedical and biodiversity sciences. This project will use advanced ecological and evolutionary genomics approaches in a rigorous comparative framework to assess the historical and contemporary patterns of diversity in Britain’s salmonid fishes. Based on new fiel...

Welcome to all the new Master's students (MRes and MSc) arriving to University of Glasgow. We have range of exciting projects in the Quantitative Methods course and in the MRes! For example, how to individually identify a lizard based on colour patterns? Where around SCENE can we find lizards, and what are their reproductive traits like? (a project to live in that beautiful place!) How might they differ from alpine lizards (to live in the Alps!) What genes differ between adaptive radiations of fishes, and how can we track the genetic variation mining high throughput sequences? How is the genetic health of brown trout in the rivers around Glasgow? Look forward to seeing you at the Session Opening party. Any questions about the projects on offer, please don't hesitate to ask.

We thank the Carnegie Trust for the Research Incentive grant funding our project "Environmental and genomic drivers of diversity in Scottish fishes of high natural heritage value". Scottish freshwater fishes harbour an exceptionally rich array of diversity within species and are regarded by scientists, government and society alike as having very high economic and natural heritage value, especially the loch-restricted salmonid species brown trout (Salmo trutta), Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus), and powan (Coregonus lavaretus). All of these species are topics of biodiversity management conservation efforts and fundamental evolutionary biology and ecology research. In this project we aim to assess the roles of extrinsic and intrinsic factors influencing intraspecific diversity. This will be done in a comparative analysis across environments and species to identify the environmental, demographic and genomic facilitators of intraspecific, ecologically relevant morphological di...

Thrilled to have been nominated for and now awarded the FSBI Medal for a young scientist 'deemed to have made exceptional advances in the study of fish biology', granted by the international society for fish biology based in the UK.

Congrats to James Burgon who has been awarded funding from the Systematics Research Fund  (Linnean Society of London and the Systematics Association) for his phylogenomics research on salamanders.

Congratulations to Heather McDevitt who has been awarded a Life Sciences Undergraduate Vacation Scholarship for her project on polymorphisms and genetics.

See the coming conference in Tromso for a few fishy days of discussion and presentation about charr and their amazing diversity. I am very pleased be an invited speaker to talk about charr genomics and to meet up with some great colleagues and researchers in the land of the midnight sun! - Kathryn    http://charr.akvaplan.com/program#monday-15th

Kathryn Elmer and colleagues' work on parallel evolution of cichlid fishes is featured in the new  Naturally Speaking podcast and blog  in the article ' How many ways are there to make a fish?' Check that and the other great entries for the research activities in our lab and in the Institute .

Using molecular markers in ecology and evolution is moving massively parallel. Not only can the new era of genotyping using next-generation sequencing give high resolution through generating thousands of markers but, with sufficient genomic knowledge, can be used to localize polymorphisms across the genome. Restriction site associated DNA sequencing (RADseq) of various different forms (see a very nice recent review of approaches here ) is currently a major method of choice for researchers studying complex genomes and without requiring prior genomic resources. We have recently developed a new genotyping-by-sequencing RAD sequencing approach for the Ion Torrent platform. The method can robustly generate thousands of loci using a modification of the ddRADseq protocol developed by Hopi Hoekstra's lab based on RADseq and applied on Ion Torrent/ Ion Proton/ Ion PGM semi-conductor sequencing. The method is modular, has a low error rate, is economical, and importantly can be very fast. ...

In a recent collaboration with the First Nations Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board, research about local fisheries of the Far North: Hans Recknagel, Amy Amos & Kathryn R Elmer (2014) Morphological and ecological variation among populations and subspecies of Burbot ( Lota lota) from the Mackenzie River Delta, Canada . CFN 128 (4) The Mackenzie River Delta is a suture zone where many postglacial lineages come in contact as the Eurasian lineages reach east and south and North American lineages extended northward. We found considerable variability in ecological and morphological traits of burbot fishes in the region, and suggestion that that the different subspecies of burbot may exploit different niches. This is a new study following on earlier work that identified the first burbot subspecific contact zone and its asymmetric genetic admixture  based on population genetics. Quick dissemination of these findings were important because the Mackenzie River is under developme...

Our interdisciplinary project “Convergence, connectivity, and continuity: Topological perspectives for mining novel biological information from ‘omics data” and super-candidate Mel Chen from Australia have been awarded a Lord Kelvin Adam Smith PhD Scholarship from the University of Glasgow! This research will bridge algebraic topology (L. Watson, Maths) and evolutionary biology (K. Elmer, IBAHCM). We look forward to welcoming Mel to Glasgow in the autumn.