Syllabus
Block I: basic concepts in speciation and case study of a hybridization barrier, the triploid block · Week
1. Lecture: Introduction to speciation and hybridization barriers; no practical class. · Week
2. Lecture: Postzygotic barriers, Bayeson-Dobzhansky-Müller incompatibilities, genomic conflicts; no practical class. · Week
3. Lecture: Knowledge consolidation I: group work on the concept of species; 4 hours practical class: reminders on R. · Week
4. Lecture: Polyploid speciation, triploid block; no practical class. · Week
5. Lecture: Transcriptomics, a method to understand the functional basis of hybridization barriers; 4 hours practical class: Transcriptomics of a hybridization barrier, the triploid block. Block II: the population genomics of speciation, or how allele frequency changes lead to hybridization barriers · Week
6. Lecture: Methodologies and concepts in population genomics I; no practical class. · Week
7. Lecture: Methodologies and concepts in population genomics II; no practical class. · Week
8. Lecture: Knowledge consolidation II, essay writing on a case study: the population genomics of speciation by domestication; no practical class. · Week
9. Lecture: Genotype-phenotype associations, a method to discover speciation genes; 4 hours practical class: Hybrid necrosis in Capsella. Revealing the genetic basis using a QTL approach. Block III: gene flow, the other side of the speciation coin · Week
10. Lecture: Gene flow, the rule rather than the exception of speciation; no practical class. · Week
11. Lecture: Evolutionary consequences of gene flow between species: hybrid speciation, adaptive introgression; no practical class. · Week
12. Lecture: A method to detect gene flow; 4 hours practical class: Detecting gene flow between species.
Annotation
This course will be held in English.
How does a new species arise? With the recent advances in -omics technologies and the ability to sequence complete genomes, characterize full transcriptomes or metabolomes, we have never been as close to the answer as now. This technological boom not only revived the interest of the scientific community for speciation research, but also enriched our knowledge of the processes underlying adaptation and population differentiation. This course will cover up-to-date theoretical aspects of speciation and hybridization barriers in animals and plants, as well as the modern approaches to address these questions. Students will have hands-on practical classes involving state-of-the-art genomic analyses applied to the topics of speciation and adaptation: study design, transcriptomic analyses in hybrids, QTL to determine the genetic basis of hybridization barriers, detection of gene flow... They will be based on data adapted from actual recent research works. The course will be taught exclusively in English.
Learning outcomes: At the end of the course, the students will be able to:
- explain the main evolutionary mechanisms driving adaptation and speciation.
- identify the genomic consequences of such mechanisms using state-of-the-art –omics methodologies.
- use R to do so.