Wanted

Undergraduate students wanted for the following thesis:

• Screening of selected Salmo salar BAC clones
• Identification and genotyping of candidate genes for color pattern in trout (Salmo sp.)
• Survey and analysis of possible causes for deformities in Adriatic grayling with emphasis on genetics and nutrition
• Population genetic structure of marble trout (Salmo marmoratus) after their introduction in fishless stream Slatenik in 2001

For details, please contact simona.susnik@bfro.uni-lj.si, andrej.razpet@bfro.uni-lj.si or ales.snoj@bfro.uni-lj.si.

Some photos showing the everyday work in the lab and on field trips:

A more detailed description:

• Survey and analysis of possible causes for deformities in Adriatic grayling with emphasis on genetics and nutrition.Adriatic grayling is highly endangered freshwater species, which was almost gone extinct due to hybridization with non-native introduced grayling from adjacent Sava basin (Black Sea river system). Adriatic grayling repopulation is based on hatchery-rearing, which is at the moment actually the only way for its successful propagation. However, hatchery rearing brings about several difficulties, one of them being deformities, which emerges as musculoskeletal problems causing deformed body shape. These deformations seriously cause general viability and reproduction of affected fish. There are several possible reasons for this abnormality including nutritional, genetic and infectious ones and/or their interactions. The main objective of the diploma work is to gather and study all relevant literature, to re-analyze and integrate results from different disconnected studies in other fish species in order to develop a strategy for identification of real causes of this disease in Adriatic grayling. This diploma work has been conceived as theoretical one; however its extension in a more practical direction is possible at student's wish.
• Population genetic structure of marble trout (Salmo marmoratus) after their introduction in fishless stream Slatenik in 2001.In June, 2001, 90 genetically pure marble trout kept in a fish farm but originating from a stream that had been previously devastated by an earth-slip, were introduced into a fishless stream called Slatenik, where they have survived and reproduced. The objective is to screen genetic structure of the introduced population and compare it with the parental one in order to assess genetic diversity, effective population size, bottlenecks etc… of the introduced population and to perform parentage analysis.