The mixing of genomes between different species, known as hybridization, can create unique evolutionary opportunities and can also lead to the formation of clonal and polyploid strains, which can establish in natural environments. Hybridization often results in the emergence of new traits absent in the parental species. However, it remains unclear to what extent the traits of these hybrid strains are determined by direct interactions between parental subgenomes, as opposed to being shaped by the hybrid's adaptive evolution. To answer this long-standing evolutionary question, our project will capitalize on the unique properties of asexual organisms, i.e. to their ability to clonally self-replicate. We will investigate sexually reproducing loaches and their di- and tri-ploid clonal hybrids, focusing on their genomic, epigenomic, and phenotypic traits. Comparing several natural clones and experimental F1 strains will help disentangling the effects of direct inter-subgenome interactions from those of adaptive evolution within individual clones.
The project investigates interactions among subgenomes in hybrids (polyploids) across several levels of biological complexity, including chromosome associations, epigenetic signaling, cytonuclear interactions and expression of phenotypic trait in the context of environments where the organism occurs
Time-stamp: <2023-04-04 13:43:58 (hpaces)> colorscheme: triad #8cc6f7