Lydia Turley

Studying for Doctor of Philosophy

Area of study:
Mathematical Models for Fungal Population Genetics

Supervisor: David Bryant

Email: turly826@student.otago.ac.nz  

Thesis

Title: Mathematical Models for Fungal Population Genetics

Supervisors: David Bryant (Maths & Stats), Matt Larcombe (Botany), David Orlovich (Botany), Janice Lord (Botany)

Previous Degrees:

• BSc in Mathematics and Biology (University of Auckland)

•Honours in Mathematics (University of Otago)

•Masters in Mathematics (University of Otago)

Population genetics is the study of properties of biological populations using genetic data from a sample of individuals from the populations. Mathematical models form the bridge which connects the genetic data to the conclusions that biologists are interested in. Fungi have weird lifecycles and mating patterns which violate a number of assumptions on which standard population genetic models are built. I am working on deriving population genetic models tailored to fungi. I will investigate how and where these lead to different results than the standard models, and test their practical application to local populations of Amanita muscaria.