VERA DOMINGUES
PhD student

E-mail: veradomingues@ispa.pt
Phone: + 351 21 8811700 (ext. 320)
Fax: + 351 21 8860954

Curriculum vitae (pdf)

:: Research interests

I am interested in the evolution, speciation and phylogeographical patterns of marine organisms. The marine environment presents few absolute barriers to gene flow. This, together with high dispersal of marine organisms offers great potential to dispersion, resulting in mild genetic differentiation over large scales. There are, however, historical, demographical, biological and selective processes that limit dispersion of marine organisms thus allowing genetic divergence and population differentiation.

To approach these questions I focus on two fields of molecular evolution: Molecular Phylogeny and Population Genetics.

:: Current research project

I am currently working as a PhD student with Vitor Almada from ISPA, Ricardo Serrão Santos from DOP/UAz and Giacomo Bernardi from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

My thesis concerns the phylogeography and historical dynamics of tropical and subtropical fishes from the Macaronesian islands. I am particularly interested in the Azores. Progressive cooling of Northeastern Atlantic during the Pleistocene may have caused a mass extinction of coastal fish from the most affect regions such as the Portuguese coast and the Azores islands. Most organisms now present must have colonized these regions 17000 years ago from some southern, thus less affected, regions like Madeira.

The questions I want to address are:

1) What is the historical population dynamics between north-eastern Atlantic (including the Macaronesian islands) and Mediterranean?

2) Are population structure and migration patterns between the Macaronesian islands, the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and Africa and the Mediterranean bearing signatures of recent colonization and expansion?

3) What happened to the different populations when sea water temperatures dropped during the Pleistocene glaciations events?

4) To what extent are ocean current systems and different biological characteristics of the species shaping phylogeographical patterns?

Funded by: FCT - SFRH/BD/13069/2003

:: Publications
- Domingues VS, Faria C, Stefanni S, Santos RS, Brito A, Almada VC. (in press) Genetic divergence in the Atlantic-Mediterranean Montagu’s blenny Coryphoblennius galerita (Linnaeus 1758) revealed by molecular and morphological characters. Molecular Ecology.

- Domingues VS, Santos RS, Brito A, Alexandrou M, Almada VC. (2007) Mitochondrial and nuclear markers reveal isolation by distance and effects of Pleistocene glaciations in the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean populations of the white seabream (Diplodus sargus, L.). Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 346: 102-113.

- Almada VC, Domingues VS, Monteiro NM, Almada F, Santos RS. 2007. Molecular data confirm the validity of the Portuguese blenny (Parablennius ruber, Valenciennes, 1836) and its presence in Western Europe. Journal of Fish Biology 70B: 248-254.

- Domingues VS, Almada VC, Santos RS, Brito A, Bernardi G (2007) Phylogeography and evolution of the triplefin Tripterygion delaisi (Pisces, Blennioidei). Marine Biology 150: 509-519.

-Domingues VS, Santos RS, Brito A, Almada VC (2006) Historical population dynamics and demography of the eastern Atlantic pomacentrid Chromis limbata (Valenciennes, 1833). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 40:139-147.

- Stefanni S, Domingues V, Bouton N, Santos RS, Almada F, Almada V (2006) Phylogeny of the shanny, Lipophrys pholis, from the NE Atlantic using mitochondrial DNA markers. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 39:282-287.

- Godinho R, Domingues V, Crespo EG, Ferrand N (2006) Extensive intraspecific polymorphism detected by SSCP at the nuclear C-mos gene in the endemic Iberian lizard, Lacerta schreiberi. Molecular Ecology 15:731-738.

- Almada F, Almada VC, Domingues V, Brito A, Santos RS (2005) Molecular validation of the specific status of Parablennius sanguinolentus and Parablennius parvicornis (Pisces: Blenniidae). Scientia Marina 69(4):519-523.

- Domingues VS, Bucciarelli G, Almada VC, Bernardi G (2005) Historical colonization and demography of the mediterranean damselfish, Chromis chromis. Molecular Ecology 14:4051-4063.