Description : Sex Determination in Reptiles

The University of Canberra has postgraduate scholarships available for both domestic and international students, with a closing date of October 30, 2009. Prospective applicants will need to discuss potential projects in advance of submitting an application. See the contact below.

We are seeking postgraduate research students to work on various questions to do with sex determination in reptiles and amphibians.

Projects of interest will draw upon a combination one or more of incubation experiments and sex ratio analysis; population genetics; cross-species chromosome painting; sex chromosome gene mapping using our Pogona vitticeps BAC library; subtractive hybridization; gene expression analysis; transcriptomics; next generation sequencing and bioinformatics.

The particular combination of techniques and approaches used will depend upon the questions addressed and the interests and expertise of the candidate.

Our particular interests are in

  • seeking evidence of an underlying genetic predisposition for reptiles with TSD to be one sex or the other and determining the consequences of gene-temperature interactions for sex determination in reptiles.
  • interactions between the thermal regime within natural nests and sex determination in the context of predicting responses to climate change.
  • seeking insight to evolutionary transitions between modes of sex determination (male heterogamety XX/XY, female heterogamety ZZ/ZW, and TSD).
  • expression of sex genes under hormonal and temperature induced sex reversal.
  • Identification and characterization of universal sex-specific molecular markers in snakes and amphibians.
  • Genome organization and evolution in reptiles by generating a gene-dense physical map for Pogona vitticeps.

If you are interested in pursuing a project along these lines, or crafting a similar project in a related area, please contact Dr Tariq Ezaz (tariq.ezaz@canberra.edu.au).

Publications to have arisen from the UC team on this research can be viewed on

http://aerg.canberra.edu.au/cgi-bin/pubs.cgi?target=Z1

Contact address : Insutute for Applied Ecology
University of Canberra
ACT 2601
Australia

Please kindly mention Scholarshiponline.info when applying for this scholarship