The process of smoltification prepares the salmon for both life in the sea and the migration towards it. Several biotic and abiotic factors spur this complex physiological transition and I´m interested in its genetic regulatory basis is terms of changes in the DNA-methylation landscape and in the changes in chromatin state. I will study these changes in liver tissue because the salmon liver alters its metabolism of lipids to fit the high content of long chained fatty acids in the food sources in the ocean habitats. I also aim to study the effect of winter, that is, the period of short daylight, on the DNA-methylation landscape of both gill and liver during smoltification.

 Finally, the overarching aim of studying genetic regulation of smoltification in salmon is to trace the impact of the whole genome duplication that occured in the ancestor of the Salmonid lineage some 80-90 million years ago on the evolution of the Salmonids. The salmon genome has retained many duplicate genes that are hypothesized to have been important for the evolution of the anadromous trait important for salmon speciation.