Dr. Bart Pannebakker has started on a NWO VENI grant he has been awarded on an ecogenomic topic. He has started his VENI project in September 2008 in the Evolutionary Genetics group of Prof. Leo Beukeboom at the University of Groningen.
He will work on the the genetics and genomics of life-history trade-offs in the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis. His will focus on trade-offs with sex allocation behaviour, one of the best understood life-history traits in parasitic wasps. The vast amount of sex allocation research means we have an extremely good understanding of the selective factors acting on this behaviour. In contrast, not much is known on the genetic and genomic constraints imposed on sex allocation by trade-offs with other life-history traits. Bart will investigate these constraints in the trade-off between sex allocation and brood size, another important life-history trait in parasitic waps. He will use artificial selection to generate divergent lines and explore the phenotypic space of both traits. The genetic and genomic constraints acting on these lines will be analysed using a combination of QTL mapping and digital transcriptomic analysis. The recent availability of the Nasonia genome sequence will greatly facilitate these genomic analyses.
Bart defended his PhD thesis “ Evolutionary consequences of Wolbachia-induced parthenogenesis in the parasitoid Leptopilina clavipes” at Leiden University in 2004. He then continued to work on the evolution of reproductive modes in insects, at a CNRS funded position at the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in France, and at a NERC funded project at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.