Lectures: Genetic resources, importance, sampling and characterization. In-situ and ex-situ conservation methods. Genetic erosion and effects of domestication on biodiversity. Basic concepts of plant genomes. Biodiversity studies by means of molecular markers. Biodiversity studies by means of phenotypic traits. Biodiversity studies by sequence analyses of plant genomes. Development of genome-wide genetic markers. Genome wide association studies (GWAs) and genome wide association mapping of diversity. Applications of bioinformatics studies and examples of NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) technologies. Biodiversity exploitation in breeding programs.
Field activity: Selection of phenotypic traits to analyse. Collection of phenotypic data.
Laboratory and bioinformatic activity: DNA extraction and analyses, analyses of the results; developments of molecular markers, sequence analyses and comparison of genomic data from different species. Data collection and statistical analysis by using the software most frequently used for diversity analyses.
