In this project we work with four natural Daphnia magna populations that differ in land use in the immediate neighbourhood of their pond habitat and in parasite presence. The aim of our research is to reveal whether these populations can adapt genetically to carbaryl exposure and whether this adaptation has some consequences when exposing the populations to parasites and fish.
First we will do a full factorial two-factor experiment with carbaryl and parasites in twelve different populations that have been exposed to different experimental carbaryl selection pressure. Six clones with a different two-way interaction profile are subsequently selected to examine their response to fish, parasite and carbaryl in a full factorial three-factor experiment.
In a second phase of the project, we try to identify candidate genes involved in the genetic adaptation to carbaryl using gene expression profiles obtained from micro-array analyses.