Evolution of the recombination landscapes within percomorph (fish).

The recombination isn't homogeneous along the genome, but display some 'hotspots', which are 1-2 Kb long with a recombination rate higher (5-10 fold higher). The distribution of this recombination hotspot is different among species, population, and even individuals. Understand the evolution of this recombination landscapes is something in progress, and two main patterns have emerged : Hotspots associated with TSS regions, and hotspots associated to the presence of the PRDM9 protein. The first one is much more conserved along evolutionary time, while the second is evolving really rapidly.

In my thesis, I am investigating which kind of process govern the evolution of percomorph fish, which represent half of the vertebrates. To do so, I will built recombination map based on LD patterns analyses, and compared these maps between recently diverged populations.

This is a little overview, as I just begin two weeks ago. But lots of interesting things are to explore ! (Divergence, signature of selection/adaptation, how it affect the recombination inference ) ... really exciting !