Provisional schedule
The course will comprise 5 days of guided practicals using real-world data, supplemented by short talks and thematic lectures. There will be open time for discussions around issues in metagenetics, with the particular aim of discussing participant queries and ideas. During the weekend participants will have the chance to visit some of the island's unique ecosystems.
Day 1, Wednesday 2nd October
- Course introduction.
- Introduction to metabarcoding concepts and applications.
- Raw data to community data: guided practical session on metabarcoding tools and pipelines
Day 2, Thursday 3rd October
- Challenges in metabarcoding OTU identification
- Guided practical session comparing methods for identifying OTUs
- Introduction to mitochondrial genomics for phylogeny
Day 3, Friday 4th October
- Application of mitochondrial genomics and phylogeny to metagenetics.
- Guided practical session outlining the production of mitochondrial genomes using MMG
- Guided practical session on phylogenetic applications for metagenetics
Weekend 5/6th October
- During the weekend, a free 1-day excursion across the island will be offered to all participants, which will include hiking (and optional fieldwork) in some of Cyprus unique ecosystems. Further details will be announced in due course.
Day 4, Monday 7th October
- Overview of richness data analysis for metagenetics
- Guided practical session on use of beta diversity measures for assessing differences in community composition
- Guided practical session on diversity partitioning
Day 5, Tuesday 8th October
- Incorporating evolutionary relationships into diversity analyses
- Guided practical session on distance-decay analysis for biological communities
- Guided practical session on integrating the assessment of ecological and climatic drivers of compositional variation
