Using full-genomic data to assess individual niche in wild fish populations

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My research addresses a basic component to ecological genomics by examining the extent to which morphological and genetic differences among individuals in wild populations differ in their use of niche space and if so, estimate the importance to ecological, evolutionary and conservation policy. Much of the past efforts to identify such associations have been limited because until recently, genome-wide markers for individuals have not been available and therefore observed differences in the individual niche have received little attention. I am studying this issue using a small freshwater fish, the threespine stickleback. The stickleback is one of the first fish species to be fully-sequenced and this has allowed development of thousands of genetic markers (SNPs) throughout the genome that can be rapidly identified and used to assess genetic variability in wild populations. My proposal supports the training of one MSc, one PhD and at least four undergraduate students and will entail multiple field and lab protocols involving morphometric, isotopic and genetic protocols as a rigorous test of the niche-width or adaptive variation hypotheses. As well, the proposal supports one Post-doctoral position for analyses of the newly available full genome sequences of 57 stickleback from 29 lake populations of stickleback on Haida Gwaii, coastal British Columbia. These stickleback span over short geographical distances much of the morphological and ecological diversity in the entire species and which largely represent independent and replicated colonization events from marine ancestors including lake-stream species pairs. Such integration of morphometrics, life histories and physiochemical traits with full genome data has not been attempted before and can be expected to yield novel insight into ecological and physiological components to genomic variability and possibly insight to the function of multiple genes in other vertebrates.