Hybridization derived novel patterns of gene expression

This project addresses the role of gene expression in how adaptive variation can arise from hybridization. Two specific questions that will be addressed are 1) to which extent alterations to genomic architecture, including indels and inversions contributes to altered gene expression in a hybrid taxon, the Italian sparrow Passer italiae in comparison to its parental species. 2) the role of altered methylation in altered patterns of gene expression in the hybrid Italian sparrow. To understand which patterns are general, four independent lineages of hybrid Italian sparrows on different Mediterranean islands will be used as a study system. Extraction of long read DNA and de novo assembly of top quality reference genomes from long read data for all these hybrid lineages and annotation will be crucial for achiving these research goals.