Our main research lines are:
1. Sex determination, sex differentiation and sex control in aquaculture
We study the genetic, epigenetic and environmental influences on sex determination and differentiation in fish. In recent years, we have focused on the effects of temperature on fish sex using a variety of modern transcriptomic and epigenomic techniques. Our studies in farmed fish have been the basis for the development of protocols for sex and ploidy control in aquaculture.
2. Large-scale studies on the evolution of sexual systems in fish
We have compiled a database on the sexual systems (separate sexes or gonochorism, and different forms of hermaphroditism) and key life history traits of more than 4600 fish species. We study the incidence, distribution and evolutionary transitions among these sexual systems, showing that gonochorism, and not hermaphroditism, as previously thought, is likely the ancestral sexual system.
3. Environmental epigenetics: sex regulation, domestication, epigenetic clocks, biomarkers
We found an epigenetic link between temperature and sex ratios in the sea bass, the first evidence of this type in any animal. Nowadays, the role of epigenetics in sex determination and gonad differentiation is a very active area of research and we postulated the model of the Conserved Epigenetic Regulation of Sex, which now has been demonstrated both in species with separate sexes and in hermaphrodites. In the last years, we focus on the study of the establishment of epigenetic marks, having developed an epigenetic sex predictor as well as the world’s first epigenetic clock to estimate age in fish, a molecular alternative to traditional otolith analysis.
