| Grant number: | 17/02206-6 |
| Support type: | Scholarships abroad - Research |
| Effective date (Start): | August 21, 2017 |
| Effective date (End): | October 20, 2017 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Ecology |
| Principal researcher: | Rodrigo Cogni |
| Grantee: | Rodrigo Cogni |
| Host: | Walter F Eanes |
| Home Institution: | Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
| Research place: | Stony Brook University (SB), United States |
| Associated research grant: | 13/25991-0 - Ecological genomics of insects: climate adaptations and evolution of ecological interactions, AP.JP |
Abstract An important question in evolutionary biology is to understand how organisms adapt to climate variation. The research group that the applicant is stablishing at Universidade de São Paulo uses clinal variation in Drosophila melanogaster natural populations to investigate this question. Recent results indicate the need of new approaches in this research topic. Therefore, this short-term internship has two main goals. First, four D. melanogaster populations will be collected at the extremes of the latitudinal clines in the US east coast. These populations will be used to estimate virus incidence in wild individuals, and to sequence whole genomes for comparisons with populations collected in 1997 and 2010 at the same sites. Second, we will use a functional approach to test how the interaction between temperature and enzymatic expression affects metabolic flux. We will carry out an experiment to test the hypotheses that the effect of lower enzyme expression on metabolic flux only occurs at temperature extremes. The internship will take place in Prof. Walter Eanes' group (Ecology and Evolution department, Stony Brook University, US). Additionally, this internship will be important to strengthen future collaborations between the Eanes´ group and the research group that the applicant is establishing at USP. | |