Department Aquatic Ecology

The knowledge of sex determination systems is crucial if one wants to develop sex ratio distortion as a tool of potential genetic biocontrol. However, so far sex determination mechanisms are unknown in quagga and zebra mussels. This project aims at uncovering sex determination mechanisms in the invasive Quagga and Zebra mussels. We generated a chromosome-scale reference genome of the Quagga mussel, and used whole-genome resequencing of 20 males and 20 females per species to identify sex-linked genomic regions.