Fish Conservation Genetics

Our group uses population and conservation genetic tools to study the evolutionary impacts of anthropogenic changes and fishery activities on fish populations. Our main questions include:

• How important are genetic variations within/between populations for adaptation and conservation?
• What are the effects of fishery activities on the genetic variation in wild populations?
• What is the mechanism responsible for genetic differentiations of fish due to environmental and anthropogenic changes, such as artificial propagation?

Ongoing projects

• “Rapid Evolution in Captivity”: a systematic evaluation of the mechanism of fitness loss in captive-bred brown trout in the wild. (SNSF project)
• “River fragmentation and defragmentation” (CCES - ENHANCE project in collaboration with Armin Peter and Laura Langeloh)
• Theoretical evaluation of the effects of hatchery fish stocking in wild populations
• Power analysis of fitness difference tests under realistic conditions
• Comparative genomics and population genetics studies on DNA sequences (in collaboration with Nanjing University)
• Population genetic studies on flatfish asymmetry gene (in collaboration with Japanese and US researchers)
  

Team

• Hitoshi Araki, group leader

Former group members

• Benjamin M. Adjei, former MSc student
  
• Peter Njenga, former MSc student
  
• Samuel Wechsler, MSc student
• Diego Dagani, technician
• Julian Junker, technician
• Corinne Schmid, former technician
• Clémence Tournaire, former technician
  
• Mathieu Camenzind, former civil service
• Andreas Widmer, former civil service

NOTICE: We are looking for university students with enthusiasm to join our lab and study for his/her thesis on one of the research subjects listed above. We have close collaborations with Swiss universities including University of Bern and ETH. If you are interested, please contact Hitoshi Araki (email address in the link above).