Is virus transfer by ticks driving sleepy lizard speciation?

Project description

Mechanisms at the genetic level for how parasites drive diversification, and ultimately speciation, remain unknown. This project will examine the extent to which that viruses transferred by ticks onto sleepy lizards drive divergent selection of immune genes, and whether this transfer can influences speciation in the lizards. The honours project won't ultimately answer the complete question but will provide the foundations for answering this question and is supported by Australian Research Council funding to Mike Gardner. The project uses samples from a longterm survey of sleepy lizards and their parasites, continous since 1982. Paired metagenomes of lizard blood and tick-gut viromes will be used to form this analysis and to develop a dataset that will inform future microbiome exploration of host-parasite interactions.

Co-supervisors

Dr Michael Doane; Prof Jim Mitchell

Assumed knowledge

enthusiam for science and an inquiring mind; molecular ecology; some microbiology; some bioinformatics; writing skills

Note: You need to register interest in projects from different supervisors (not a number of projects with the one supervisor).
You must also contact each supervisor directly to discuss both the project details and your suitability to undertake the project.