About the research

Recent divergence and parallelism can be used to examine key questions about the repeatability of evolution, the genotype-phenotype map and the effect of environmental factors of phenotypic diversity and divergence. Genomic techniques have enabled studies of non-model species and make rigorous testing of key hypotheses possible. Arctic charr invaded Icelandic waters ~10.000 years ago, and radiated into several distinct morphotypes in multiple lakes and streams thus staging a natural experiment ideal for studies integrating the genetic basis of diverging phenotypes and population genetic history. In the proposed project we will use cutting edge genomic techniques to identify loci relating to rapid, ecological and morphological divergence and parallelism among Icelandic Arctic charr populations. We have already sequenced a developmental transcriptome of the charr but to that leaves out non-coding regions. To enable analyses of repeated evolution we, need to study genome wide divergence, consolidate the history, population structure and phylogeography of Arctic charr in Iceland. To this end we will use high throughput genotyping of multiple populations spanning the extensive phenotypic variation, including populations from Eurasia and Canada. Furthermore the data will be used to identify SNPs associating with variation in morphology and to test if loci correlate with ecological specializations over multiple populations. This work can reveal if genes that associate with ecological specializations are under positive selection or if they have experienced relaxation of purifying selection.

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