Summary:
Evolutionary adaptations are written in DNA as distinctive footprints that reflect the adaptation of species, including humans, to new ways of life and to challenges imposed by the abiotic environment or the arrival of new pathogens. A pressing need is to understand what are the different scenarios that may impose bursts of adaptation, and how we can develop powerful statistical tools to detect these bursts from empirical data. In POPADAPT we aim to combine our various expertise to understand how shifts in species’ habitats, brought about by the recent human-induced global warming or by past selective events, impinge on their genomes. We will focus on humans, Drosophila and Vibrio, which includes some pathogenic species, to learn how populations can accommodate to novel thermal niches and how humans have adapted to multiple habitats and different disease-causing organisms when spreading across the globe. For the visualization and interpretation of genomic information, an open resource will be created: PopLife, a reference genome browser in Population Genomics for humans, Drosophila, Vibrio and a growing number of species. For this purpose, we will combine experimental evolution with the development of new bioinformatic pipelines and statistical tools for the analysis of genomic data. The understanding of past and current species’ adaptations is key to forecasting future adaptations to environmental changes and emerging diseases.
Keywords:
Population genomics, Drosophila, humans, Vibrio, global warming, infectious diseases, natural selection, hybridization, genome browsers.
Funding:
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Espanha (PID2021-127107NB-I00)
Project Team:
Barbadilla Prados, Antoni (Principal Investigator)Martinez Urtaza, Jaime Luis (Principal Investigator 2)Casillas Viladerrams, Sonia (Investigator)Fontdevila Vivanco, Antoni (Investigator)Garcia Guerreiro, Maria del Pilar (Investigator)Santos Maroño, Mauro (Investigator)FALUSH, DANIEL (Collaborator)GONZALEZ-ESCALONA, NARJOL (Collaborator)VEZZULLI, LUIGI (Collaborator)Matos, Margarida (Collaborator)Simöes, Pedro (Collaborator)ENARD, DAVID (Collaborator)Viera, Cristina (Collaborator)Egea Sanchez, Raquel (Collaborator)Colomer Vilaplana, Aina (Collaborator)Murga Moreno, Jesus (Collaborator)Gomez Graciani, Ruth (Collaborator)Amor Jimenez, Cristina (Collaborator)Qanbari , Saber (Collaborator)
