Prof Richard Nichols Home Page


	Richard Nichols
$↓$ Previous work $↓$ on theme $↓$	$↓$ Themes $↓$ Want to work with us ? Contact me to discuss your ideas.	$↓$ Ongoing projects $↓$
Bob Verity applied thermodynamic integration to estimate the number of subpopulations (k) in a genetic sample, and to allow inference integrating over all possible k. His software is here: rMaverick	Genetic Divergence I develop Bayesian methods to draw inferences from genetic data about the action of selection, population history and gene flow in shaping the distribution of genetic variants.	Hannes Becher has evidence of excess selection on the sex chromosomes (points marked x) in a genome wide survey of an alpine grasshopper hybrid zone. (photos of Podisma pedistris & the French Alps above)
Aussie colleage Clare Holleley showed that existing theory of effective population size could not explain the changes in genetic diversity in lab populations of Drosophila (a heroic experiment with Bill Sherwin UNSW)	Experimental Evolution I apply this theory in collaborations with teams who set up evolution in the lab: including cancer cell lines and Drosophila flies	Freddie Whiting is working with Trevor Graham at Cancer Research UK on pleiotropy of drug resistance alleles in cancer cell lines. UNSW postgrad Luis Mijangos Araujo is exploring associative overdominance as an explanation for the Drosophila results.
Stephen Price combined lab & field studies to show the effect of temperature on the virus, and hence to propose strategies to limit its spread with climate warming. (Picture show projected spread of infections)	Invasive disease I apply some of these ideas to study evolution & epidemiology of ranavirus infection in fish, reptiles and amphibians. (Infected frog)	Joint PhD students with Trent Garner at the Institute of Zoology continue this project: Charlotte Ford is working on methods for detecting the virus in animals showing no signs of the disease. Yuhui Niu is looking at the transcriptome of cells infected by strains differing in virulence and in different environments.
Carey Metheringham has shown that genomic prediction can be used to identify ash trees resilient to an invasive disease, in a paper with Richard Buggs & colleagues at Kew.	Genomic Prediction Developing new approaches for phenotypic predictions by combining estimates from thousands of loci, many with effects too small to be statistically significant	Joint projects with Kew: Yann Dussert applies this approach to the resilience to climate change of Ethiopian crops (picture) Carey Metheringham (See opposite) Louise Gathercole works on the microbiome associated with Acute Oak Decline.

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