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GENETIC POPULATION STRUCTURE IN MARINE ORGANISMS AND THE EFFECT OF OCEANOGRAPHIC DISCONTINUITIES: WHAT DO WE KNOW?

24 Jan 2014 - Marta Pascual (Universitat de Barcelona) | January 24, 2014 | 14h30 | CIBIO’s Auditorium, Campus de Vairão
GENETIC POPULATION STRUCTURE IN MARINE ORGANISMS AND THE EFFECT OF OCEANOGRAPHIC DISCONTINUITIES: WHAT DO WE KNOW?

 

The spatial distribution of genetic diversity is mainly influenced by barriers to dispersal. The nature of these barriers in marine organisms is sometimes difficult to ascertain and can vary among species depending of their life history traits and bathymetric distribution. The Atlantic-Mediterranean transition is a good model area since the circulation pattern and topography originates several oceanographic discontinuities that can be studied with a multispecies approach. I will present published (Galarza et al 2009, Schunter et al 2011, García-Merchán et al 2012) and unpublished work done in my group during the last 10 years. Using different genetic markers we have analyzed the genetic population structure of several crustacean and fish species to specifically test the effect of several oceanographic fronts on population connectivity and directional gene flow.

 

 

Marta Pascual is a Professor in the Department of Genetics at the Universitat de Barcelona, having graduated in Biology and received her PhD from the same university. Marta spent two years at the University of California Irvine during her PhD studies and, afterwards, worked at Cornell University as a postdoc. Marta’s main research lines include population genetic structure of marine organisms, phylogeography, phylogeny and conservation genetics; genetic studies of invasive species and genomic and transcriptomic analyses of model (Drosophila subobscura) and non-model (Tripterygion delaisi) species. She has supervised 12 PhD thesis and 16 Master or Graduate thesis, and has participated in 27 research projects. With an h-index of 23, Marta is currently the author of 83 papers and 139 congress presentations.

 

 

Image credits: Marta Pascual

 

 

References
Galarza JA, Carreras-Carbonell J, Macpherson E, Pascual M, Roques S, Turner GF, Rico C. 2009. The influence of oceanographic fronts and early-life-history traits on connectivity among littoral fish species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106:1473-1478
García-Merchán, V.H., Robainas-Barcia, A., Abelló, P., Macpherson, E., Palero, F., García-Rodríguez, M., Gil de Sola, L., & Pascual, M. (2012) Phylogeographic patterns of decapod crustaceans at the Atlantic-Mediterranean transition. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 62: 664–672
Schunter, C., J. Carreras-Carbonell, E. Macpherson, J. Tintoré, E. Vidal-Vijande, P. Guidettia nd M. Pascual. (2011) Matching genetics with oceanography: directional gene flow in a Mediterranean fish species. Molecular Ecology 20:5167–5181

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