Slate Group - University of Sheffield

Research projects are described on separate pages (drop down list under Research button).

Generally, we aim to discover and understand the genetic architecture of fitness related traits, mostly in wild populations, and mostly with a view to understanding microevolutionary processes. We often take a gene mapping (QTL) approach to this work, but usually try to integrate this method with other approaches (quantitative genetics, molecular evolution, gene expression, population genomics etc).

Questions we try to address:

• What is the genetic architecture of fitness related traits?
• How does this architecture constrain or enable an evolutionary response to selection?
• Do the same genes/QTL explain variation in different populations?
• Are the effects of individual loci environmentally sensitive?
• Are the same genes involved in macro and micro-evolutionary processes?
• What are the actual genes that underly these QTL?
• Will we ever be able to predict phenotype from genotype?