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Speciation genomics in nightingales
Mořkovský, Libor ; Reifová, Radka (advisor) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee) ; Piálek, Lubomír (referee)
Speciationisusuallyaslowprocessoccurringoverthousandstomillionsofyears.Thismakes speciation research difficult because no direct observation or manipulation is possible. At best, we can gain some insight by inferring the population history and structure in very fine detail by investigating genetic markers in multiple individuals of the nascent species. Today, speciationresearchisinanunprecedentedpositionthankstotheadventofhigh-throughput sequencingmethods,whichmakeiteasier and cheaper than ever before to evaluate multiple markers in many individuals. Speciation is not a straightforward process that happens in the same way every time, but rather a phenomenon occurring when genetic and ecological circumstancesactinginsymphonyultimatelyleadtoreproductiveisolationoftwosubpopula- tions. This is why it is important to study multiple model systems to understand the general principles behind speciation. We worked with two species of nightingales (Luscinia luscinia andL.megarhynchos)thatdivergedapproximately1.8Mya,likelyduetoglacialfluctuations in Europe. Our main goal was to use these new high-throughput sequencing methods to (1) detect interspecific hybrids between the species, (2) estimate levels of interspecific gene flow,(3)findareasofthenightingalegenomethatunderliereproductiveisolationand,finally, (4)...
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Speciation genomics in nightingales
Mořkovský, Libor
Speciationisusuallyaslowprocessoccurringoverthousandstomillionsofyears.Thismakes speciation research difficult because no direct observation or manipulation is possible. At best, we can gain some insight by inferring the population history and structure in very fine detail by investigating genetic markers in multiple individuals of the nascent species. Today, speciationresearchisinanunprecedentedpositionthankstotheadventofhigh-throughput sequencingmethods,whichmakeiteasier and cheaper than ever before to evaluate multiple markers in many individuals. Speciation is not a straightforward process that happens in the same way every time, but rather a phenomenon occurring when genetic and ecological circumstancesactinginsymphonyultimatelyleadtoreproductiveisolationoftwosubpopula- tions. This is why it is important to study multiple model systems to understand the general principles behind speciation. We worked with two species of nightingales (Luscinia luscinia andL.megarhynchos)thatdivergedapproximately1.8Mya,likelyduetoglacialfluctuations in Europe. Our main goal was to use these new high-throughput sequencing methods to (1) detect interspecific hybrids between the species, (2) estimate levels of interspecific gene flow,(3)findareasofthenightingalegenomethatunderliereproductiveisolationand,finally, (4)...
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Speciation genomics in nightingales
Mořkovský, Libor ; Reifová, Radka (advisor) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee) ; Piálek, Lubomír (referee)
Speciationisusuallyaslowprocessoccurringoverthousandstomillionsofyears.Thismakes speciation research difficult because no direct observation or manipulation is possible. At best, we can gain some insight by inferring the population history and structure in very fine detail by investigating genetic markers in multiple individuals of the nascent species. Today, speciationresearchisinanunprecedentedpositionthankstotheadventofhigh-throughput sequencingmethods,whichmakeiteasier and cheaper than ever before to evaluate multiple markers in many individuals. Speciation is not a straightforward process that happens in the same way every time, but rather a phenomenon occurring when genetic and ecological circumstancesactinginsymphonyultimatelyleadtoreproductiveisolationoftwosubpopula- tions. This is why it is important to study multiple model systems to understand the general principles behind speciation. We worked with two species of nightingales (Luscinia luscinia andL.megarhynchos)thatdivergedapproximately1.8Mya,likelyduetoglacialfluctuations in Europe. Our main goal was to use these new high-throughput sequencing methods to (1) detect interspecific hybrids between the species, (2) estimate levels of interspecific gene flow,(3)findareasofthenightingalegenomethatunderliereproductiveisolationand,finally, (4)...
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Summarization of gene expression arrays from free living species
Tuma, Vojtěch ; Mořkovský, Libor (advisor) ; Vomlelová, Marta (referee)
Gene expression arrays are used to assess expression of exons and genes of orga- nisms. The design of expression arrays is based on a genome of laboratory strains of model organisms. The most frequent summarization algorithms used to pro- cess data from measurements are gcRMA, PLER and IterPLIER. When using expression arrays to research free living species, the measured values are influen- ced by differences in genomes of free living and model organisms. We propose a method to improve the results by removing parts of genomes influenced by known differences between species from the summarization. Removing influenced parts can improve summarization, especially on exon level. 1
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Characterization of Z chromosome gene content in birds
Mořkovský, Libor ; Reifová, Radka (advisor) ; Král, Jiří (referee)
Theory predicts that sexually antagonistic mutations will be over- or under-represented on the X and Z chromosomes, depending on the average dominance coefficient of the mutations. However, as little is known about the dominance coefficients for new mutations, the effect of sexually antagonistic selection is difficult to predict. To elucidate the role of sexually antagonistic selection in the evolution of Z chromosome gene content in chicken, we analyzed publicly available microarray data from several somatic tissues as well as somatic and germ cells of the ovary. We found that the Z chromosome is enriched for genes showing preferential expression in ovarian somatic cells, but not for genes with preferential expression in primary oocytes or non-sex-specific somatic tissues. Our results suggest that sexual antagonism leads to higher abundance of female-benefit alleles on the Z chromosome. No bias towards Z-linkage of oocyte-enriched genes can be explained by lower intensity of sexually antagonistic selection in ovarian germ cells compared to ovarian somatic cells. An alternative explanation would be that meiotic Z chromosome inactivation hinders accumulation of oocyte-expressed genes on the Z chromosome. Our results are consistent with findings in mammals and indicate that recessive rather than dominant...
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