International Research Fellowship Program: Testing for Selection Signatures and Reconstructing the Phylogeographic History of the Capra Genus

Jordan, Stephen D, Arlington VA

Investigators

Abstract

0107373 Jordan The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will provide eighteen months of support to Dr. Stephen D. Jordan to do research with Dr. Pierre Taberlet at Universite Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France. This project will involve working on the molecular systematics and population genetics of goats. The PI will use existing maps of the domestic goat genome to identify approximately 20 nuclear genes for sequencing in wold and domestic goats. He will use the sequence data for two major purposes. First he will generate a phylogenetic tree of all goat species relationships. He will reconstruct the evolutionary history and look for molecular signatures indicative of goat hybridization between both wild and domestic species. Second, he will use the same data set to search for genetic signatures of natural selection in goats. This project will generate one of the largest data sets (in terms of genes sequenced) assembled for a molecular systematics study or to identify selection signatures. Dr. Taberlet is a leader in studies of biogeography and intraspecific genetic variation.