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- Local Adaptation in Drosophila
Marta Alves Antunes
PhD StudentI am a PhD student of the Biology programme within the research group ‘Local Adaptation in Drosophila’ of the thematic line ‘Evolutionary Perspectives in a Changing World’ of CE3C. My supervisors are Pedro Simões and Margarida Matos. To analyze if populations can adapt quickly enough to warming conditions, I am combining experimental evolution with second-generation sequencing to study how Drosophila subobscura populations adapt to a warming climate. This approach allows to study the real-time evolution of populations under controlled conditions, including the underlying genetic basis.
In our team, starting with ADAPTCLIMWARM, we have been analyzing the evolution under climate warming conditions of Drosophila subobscura populations with distinct biogeographical histories (northern and southern European populations), both the evolution of phenotypic (life-history and physiological) traits and transcriptomic evolution under different thermal regimes.
In my PhD project I am focusing on changes at the transcriptomic level during thermal adaptation. I am using RNA-sequencing to study gene expression changes in populations evolving in a warming environment, with increases in mean temperature and thermal amplitude. Specifically, I am addressing gene expression changes as a function of temperature (plasticity) and selection (different thermal regimes).
Our goal is to find candidate genes with impact in selection and thermal plasticity as well as the impact of biogeographical history in the evolutionary response.
- Email: marta.alves.antunes@gmail.com
- Web References: Scopus, Orcid
- Research Group: Local Adaptation in Drosophila