Dr Katie Gates

PhD supervisors: Prof Luciano Beheregaray and A/Prof Luciana Möller

I have held a lifelong fascination for the natural world and the impacts of human activity on the environment, and completed my Bachelor of Science (Biodiversity & Conservation) at Flinders University in 2015. During this time I became increasingly interested in ecology and evolution, leading me to join the Molecular Ecology Lab in 2016 for my honours project on ecological trancriptomics of the desert rainbowfish (Melanotaenia splendida tatei). I am now lucky enough to be undertaking my PhD in the lab, focussing on functional genomics of the eastern rainbowfish (Melanotaenia splendida splendida). I plan to use landscape genomics and transcriptomic approaches to study links between genomic and environmental variation and the resulting functional responses in these endemic freshwater fish. I hope that my research will help to increase our understanding of the genetic basis for adaptation to changing environments, with particular interest in the relation to human impacts such as climate change.