Next Tuesday, February 5, María Fernández, predoctoral researcher of Marine Genetic Resources (ReXenMar) at CIM-UVigo and the AquaCOV group at the Oceanographic Institute of Vigo, will present, as part of the “Café con Sal” lecture series, the talk “Hakes of the world: clarifying the phylogenetic status of five candidate species”, in which she will present the methodology and some of the results of her doctoral thesis.
The diversification of marine species and the modernization of aquaculture through innovation are essential for the development and sustainability of aquaculture. The first challenge faced in the cultivation and conservation of European hake is its controversial species-level identification, as reliable diagnostic keys applicable to all specimens of a given species are not known. In recent decades, significant progress has been made in the phylogeny of Merluccius spp. using various morphological and genetic targets. However, the phylogenies constructed to date do not include all existing candidate taxa nor reveal their exact fishing locations, making it impossible to reconstruct a complete phylogeny for this genus.
In this context, María Fernández is conducting her doctoral thesis titled “Aplicación de la genómica y la transcriptómica al cultivo de especies candidatas en acuicultura,” with the aim of improving the traceability of the genus Merluccius, characterizing new species, and differentiating regional stocks. The thesis, supervised by Dr. Pablo Presa Martínez (ReXenMar, UVIGO) and Dr. Montse Pérez Rodríguez (AquaCOV, IEO), is financially supported by the LETSHAKE project (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), the Marine Research Singular Center of the University of Vigo (Xunta de Galicia), and the predoctoral training scholarship from the Xunta de Galicia.
During the lecture, María will present the complete phylogenetic structure of the genus Merluccius spp., which includes all forms and candidate morphotypes described to date in this genus, the methodology used—consisting of genetic targets with distinct evolutionary characteristics—and various strategies for phylogenetic reconstruction.
The lecture will take place at 11:00h in the ECIMAT Assembly Hall and will be broadcast live at http://tv.uvigo.es/es/directo/1.html, and will later be available on UVigoTV.
