PhD Position available in ecological genomics


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 field collections, cutting edge high throughput genotyping approaches using next-generation sequencing will be used to infer the extent and organisation of genomic variability. The relative roles of environmental heterogeneity, ecological and morphological diversity, and genome-wide genetic diversity will be compared in a multispecies synthesis. The outcome will be a predictive framework for environmental heterogeneity in genomic and morphological evolutionary processes.

Salmonid fishes are of high economic, conservation, and natural history importance for Britain, but to date no relationship between environmental, genetic, and eco-morphological variability has been identified. Such a link is of key importance to preservation of biodiversity, its habitats, and the future of fisheries food security. This project is additionally supported by a Research Incentive Grant from the Carnegie Trust. Links with Scottish Natural Heritage or other charity/government bodies may also be possible.

Supervisors:
Dr Kathryn Elmer, Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow 
Prof Colin Adams, Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow

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Published today as free open access in Molecular Ecology :  Genomic underpinnings of head and body shape in Arctic charr ecomorph pairs Sam Fenton, Arne Jacobs, Colin Bean, Colin Adams & Kathryn Elmer The appearance of repeated phenotypes across replicates in similar environments have been described as examples of parallel evolution. However, the genomic bases of these similar phenotypes is rarely elucidated and so whether the same genomic pathways are used to achieve these similar phenotypes across replicates is rarely known. Here we used the repeated divergence of benthivorous-planktivorous ecomorph pairs of Arctic charr to investigate the genomic underpinnings of head and body shape morphology across replicates. We found that only a small number of associated SNPs for each phenotype were shared across all four ecomorph pairs we investigated with selection on associated SNPs varying considerably across replicates. Overall, these results suggest that the genomic underpinnings ...
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