Ana Filipa da Silva Moutinho

I’m currently a master student in Biodiversity, Genetic and Evolution at CIBIO-InBIO/FCUP and I just completed an ERASMUS program in the University of Natural Resources and Life sciences in Vienna, Austria.

My master thesis will focus on testing if the two previously identified divergent lineages within Jaculus jaculus developed reproductive isolation. This study will rely on populations of Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania, where some populations of both lineages occur in sympatry, but also where populations occurring in allopatry can be distinguished. Intensive molecular techniques based on multiple microsatellites genotyping and several nuclear and mitochondrial genes sequencing will be applied. These analyses will resolve the phylogenetic relatedness of the formerly recognized as the Lesser Egyptian Jerboa, J. jaculus, and allow extending gene flow between previously recognized mitochondrial lineages.

My areas of interest involve Biodiversity in general, and Biogeography, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in particular.