A highly integrative approach to study clinal variation in South American D. melanogaster populations

Abstract

This project main goal is to use a highly integrative approach to study clinal variation in South American D. melanogaster populations, including studies of clinal variation at the genomic, transcriptomic, and phenotypic levels, as well as the influence of phenotypic plasticity, the endosymbiont Wolbachia and the gut microbiota on climate adaptation. The postdoc will coordinate a team of associated researchers, technicians, and students. First, we will study patterns of clinal variation for the entire genome by generating NGS pool-seq data for each population. Second, we will perform transcriptomic studies to investigate clinal variation in gene expression. Third, we will perform a series of laboratory experiments to investigate clinal patterns of phenotypic variation and test the influence of phenotypic plasticity, the endosymbiont Wolbachia and the gut microbiota on climate adaptation.