The genomics of speciation in European butterflies

Interested individuals must follow Steps 1, 2 and 3 at this link on how to apply
http://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/prospective-students/postgraduate/pgr/how-to-apply

The process of speciation is fundamental to the generation of biodiversity. Current ideas about how organisms speciate are being driven by innovations in large-scale genomics. Such case studies have shown that speciation can happen rapidly even in the face of gene flow and have given us a fascinating picture of the genes and genomic architectures that may be involved. However, genomic studies of speciation have been heavily biased towards either model systems, such as fruit flies for which we often lack knowledge of basic ecological parameters, or spectacular radiations such as Heliconius butterflies and Crater Lake cichlids which often feature a unique biology (e.g. Batesian mimicry) or spatial settings (African Crater Lakes). It is therefore unclear to what extent general conclusions about the speciation process can be drawn from these systems. As a result many fundamental questions about how speciation happens remain open (see Ravinet et al 2017 for a recent review). For example, we still do not know how often speciation happens in the face of gene flow or how repeatable the evolutionary changes involved are. What are the selective forces involved in speciation? Are the same genes, genomic regions and genomic architectures involved repeatedly? Are chromosomal inversions an important trigger for speciation?

The aim of this ERC-funded PhD is to tackle these questions using a systematic comparison of the genomic signatures of speciation in European butterflies, arguably one of the best studied insect groups. The Lohse lab is generating reference genome assemblies and genome-wide polymorphism data for 20 sister species pairs of butterflies sampled across six families. The project will be mainly computational/quantitative, so a strong desire to work with whole genome data is essential. The project is flexible and can be tailored to the interests of the student, including scope for a theoretical component (e.g. to develop methods for inferring past selection and/or demography (Lohse et al. 2016 )), to investigate the evolution of gene expression during speciation or to explore the longer term evolution of candidate gene families in butterflies.

The student will obtain state of the art training in genomics, bioinformatics and evolutionary genetics and statistics. The project will involve some fieldwork and collaborations with project partners in the UK and abroad.

http://lohse.bio.ed.ac.uk/ This is an ERC funded PhD project which is open to EU and non-EU (including UK) applicants. Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact [Email Address Removed] with a CV and a research plan (1 page max) to discuss the project ahead of application.