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titleboxTHOMAS D. KOCHER titlebox

professor pictureProfessor

email:tdk@umd.edu
phone:
301.405.4496 (office)
301.405.6242 (lab)
fax:301.314.9358
office:2132 Bioscience Research Building
graduate programs: Biology, BEES, MEES
bullet visit lab page   bullet most recent publications


RESEARCH INTERESTS

More than 700 species of cichlid fishes have arisen within Lake Malawi within the last million years. We want to understand the evolutionary forces which have caused this rapid speciation. We are mapping genes for phenotypic traits associated with speciation, such as jaw morphology, color pattern, sex determination and mate preferences. Our ultimate goal is to identify the genes responsible for speciation of these fishes, and to study the geographic distribution of allelic variants among populations in the wild.

Recent Publications


Cnaani A, Kocher TD. 2008. Sex-linked markers and microsatellite locus duplication in the cichlid species Oreochromis tanganicae. Biology Letters 4: 700-703.

Loh, Y-H E, Katz, LS, Mims MC, Kocher TD, Yi S, Streelman JT. 2008. Comparative analysis reveals signatures of differentiation amid genomic polymorphism in Lake Malawi cichlids. Genome Biology 9: R113.

Shirak, A, Golik M, Lee, B-Y, Howe AE, Kocher TD, Hulata G, Ron M, Seroussi E. 2008. Copy number variation of lipocalin family genes for male-specific proteins in tilapia and its association with gender. Heredity 101: 405-415.

Cnaani A, Lee BY, Zilberman N, Ozouf-Costaz C, Hulata F, Ron M, D’Hont A, Baroiller, J-F, D’Cotta H, Penman DJ, Tomasino E, Coutanceau J-P, Pepey E, Shirak A, Kocher TD. 2008. Genetics of sex determination in tilapiine species. Sexual Development 2: 43-54.

Cnaani A, Lee BY, Ozouf-Costaz C, Kocher TD. 2007. Mapping of Sox2 and Sox14 in tilapia (Oreochromis spp.). Sexual Development 1: 207-210.

Streelman JT, Albertson RC, Kocher TD. 2007. Variation in body size and trophic morphology within and among genetically differentiated populations of the cichlid fish, Metriaclima zebra, from Lake Malawi. Freshwater Biology 52: 525-538.

Lee BY, Kocher TD. 2007. Comparative genomics and positional cloning. Pp. 325-337 in J. Liu (ed.) Aquaculture Genome Technologies. Blackwell.

Lee BY, Kocher TD. 2007. Exclusion of Wilms Tumor (WT1_2) and ovarian aromatase (CYP19A1) as candidates for sex determining genes in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Animal Genetics 38: 85.

DiPalma F, Kidd C, Borowsky R, Kocher TD. 2007. Construction of bacterial artificial chromosome libraries for two model fish species: the Lake Malawi cichlid (Metriaclima zebra), and the blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus). Zebrafish 4: 41-47

Cnaani A, Lee BY, Ozouf-Costaz C, Kocher TD. 2007 Mapping of Sox2 and Sox14 in tilapia (Oreochromis spp.). Sexual Development (in press).

Lee BY, Kocher TD. Exclusion of Wilms Tumor (WT1_2) and ovarian aromatase (CYP19A1) as candidates for sex determining genes in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Animal Genetics 38: 85.

Lee BY, Kocher TD. 2007. Comparative genomics and positional cloning. In J. Liu (ed.) Aquaculture Genome Technologies. Blackwell. (in press).

Albertson RC, Kocher TD. 2006. Genetic and developmental basis of adaptive variation in the cichlid feeding apparatus. Heredity 97:211-221.

Kidd MR, Danley PD, Kocher TD. 2006. A direct assay of female choice in cichlid fishes: all the eggs in one basket. Journal of Fish Biology 68:373-384.

Kidd MR, Kidd CE, Kocher TD. 2006. Axes of differentiaion in the bower building cichlids of Lake Malawi. Molecular Ecology 15: 459-478.

Shirak A, Seroussi E, Cnaani A, Howe AE, Domokhovsky R, Zilberman N, Kocher TD, Hulata G, Ron M. 2006. Amh and Dmrta2 genes map to tilapia (Oreochromis spp.) linkage group 23 within QTL regions for sex determination. Genetics 174: 1573-1581.