Promoter: Raoul Van Damme
Supervision: Lisa Van Linden
When populations colonize islands, they often undergo a reduction in genetic diversity due to founder effects and inbreeding, followed by further loss through genetic drift. As a result, island populations typically have lower genetic variation compared to mainland populations, making them more inbred. Such "genetic stress" can negatively influence individuals’ traits and performance, potentially reducing their fitness. However, in natural island populations, it can be difficult to separate the genetic effects on fitness from environmental factors, as island conditions often differ greatly from those on the mainland. To fully understand the impact of inbreeding on fitness, it would be necessary to compare populations raised in identical environments.
In this individual project, you will measure and compare three fitness components (endurance, disease resistance, sperm quality) between mainland and island populations of the Italian wall lizard (Podarcis siculus) to study the effect of inbreeding on fitness. For this, you will use a unique set of F1 lizards bred in a common-garden environment.
FELASA certificate required. If interested, this project can also be turned into a Master Project, if an additional field dataset is included.