Name and Surname of the Supervisor: Kristina Noreikienė
Institution (Company), Department: Gyvybės mokslų centras
Preliminary Topic: Brain in the dark: fish adaptation to humic waters through brain plasticity
Short Description of the Internship Work: Humic water has strong light-filtering capacities which leads to an extremely low transparency. This creates challenging conditions especially for visually guided organisms. Adaptation to such conditions may be achieved through various alternative routes. One of which may be through brain plasticity. In many vertebrates, such as for instance fish, brain is capable of changes even in mature individuals. To this date it is unclear if i) brain morphological differences are important for adaptation to humic conditions, ii) to what extent potential phenotypic differences are caused by genetic and environmental factors.
During this practice student (-s) will be invited to investigate fish adaptation to humic waters with a particular focus on brain. Morphometric measurements, "brain soup" method could be applied, students will learn and use various statistical methods for data analysis. Fishing in natural water bodies is also possible.
Qualification Requirements (Degree): BSc MSc
Application Deadline: 2024-12-21
Additional Comments: Suitable for students interested in ecology, zoology or genetics.