Carrie Sims
Position: Honours Student (Supervisor: Dr. Cynthia Riginos)
Education:
Research Interests: coral reef ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biodiversity of marine organisms, life history traits, and conservation of marine biodiversity
Honours project: "Testing for concordance between body colour pattern and genetic divisions to identify biogeographical populations of the cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus."
How well do we know where our local aquarium sources its fish from, what if there was an easy way to tell which biogeographic region an individual came from and thus how sustainably it was caught? Over 20 million individual fish are traded worldwide, with over 3 ½ million of these said to be from unknown origins. Molecular tools are commonly used to define population structure and identify where fish are from, yet a recent study has found that body colour pattern in some fish species divides along similar population genetic divisions. Therefore, to establish whether populations of L. dimidiatus across the Indian and Pacific oceans have similar genetic and morphological breaks I will determine mtDNA haplotypes and quantify colour patterns with morphometric analyses. This information will provide insight into the structure and distribution of these populations, enable inferences on past selection pressures and provide qualitative and quantitative information for the management and conservation of this keystone species.
Contact: carrie.sims@uqconnect.edu.au
Education:
- 2010 - Bachelor of Science. The University of Queensland
Research Interests: coral reef ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biodiversity of marine organisms, life history traits, and conservation of marine biodiversity
Honours project: "Testing for concordance between body colour pattern and genetic divisions to identify biogeographical populations of the cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus."
How well do we know where our local aquarium sources its fish from, what if there was an easy way to tell which biogeographic region an individual came from and thus how sustainably it was caught? Over 20 million individual fish are traded worldwide, with over 3 ½ million of these said to be from unknown origins. Molecular tools are commonly used to define population structure and identify where fish are from, yet a recent study has found that body colour pattern in some fish species divides along similar population genetic divisions. Therefore, to establish whether populations of L. dimidiatus across the Indian and Pacific oceans have similar genetic and morphological breaks I will determine mtDNA haplotypes and quantify colour patterns with morphometric analyses. This information will provide insight into the structure and distribution of these populations, enable inferences on past selection pressures and provide qualitative and quantitative information for the management and conservation of this keystone species.
Contact: carrie.sims@uqconnect.edu.au