I’m an evolutionary biologist interested in how biodiversity is generated. My research revolves mainly around the study of speciation. But I also have strong interests on biological conservation, landscape and population genetics, mitonuclear co-evolution, adaptive vs. non-adaptive evolution and evolutionary ecology. I have worked with a great variety of animal systems, such as fish, wasps, geckos and birds.
My current work is with the marine snail Littorina saxatilis, a highly polymorphic species formed by two differently adapted ecotypes that remain in contact in narrow hybrid zones. The two ecotypes have evolved distinctive phenotypes and behaviours, likely as a result of ecological drivers and despite being connected by undergoing gene flow, i.e. they are undergoing “ecological speciation-with-gene-flow”. The two ecotypes have evolved between similar contrasting habitats in parallel all across Western Europe. Therefore, this exceptional system allows us to measure “speciation in action” in a replicated way.
I’m analysing large datasets as a part of a large collaborative effort for unravelling the phenotypic and genomic determinates of ecotype divergence. Data is being collected from thousands of snails sourced from several different countries, our datasets and analytical tools include: morphological and behavioural measurements, individual genotyping (capture DNA sequencing), full genome re-sequencing (pool-seq), analysis of quantitative traits (QTL mapping), and transcriptomics. These efforts are to be capitalised by the assembly of the L. saxatilis genome (as part of the IMAGO project of the Centre for Marine Evolutionary Biology, CeMEB).
