Summer Scholarships
Capturing trees with minimal effort
How much information is enough to correctly reconstruct (capture) an evolutionary tree? Surprisingly, for character-based data, four bits of information suffice regardless of the size of the tree. However, for some other types of data, the amount of sufficient information grows at least linearly with the number of leaves. In this project, we will use combinatorial and algorithmic techniques to investigate problems of this nature.
The project is particularly mathematical, and so the ideal candidate is a person with a recently completed Honours degree in mathematics.
Please forward expressions of interest to Joy Wood, by 03 October 2011.
Invertebrate diversity on Hauturu
Leah Tooman and Richard Newcomb (Plant & Food Research, Mt Albert, Auckland)
Thomas Buckley (Landcare Research), Alexei Drummond and Howard Ross (University of Auckland)
The Allan Wilson Centre is undertaking a large scale biodiversity/ecology project on Hauturu (Little Barrier Island) to investigate biodiversity across the entire ecosystem along an altitudinal gradient. The project aims to establish technologies to sample ecosystems across the entire range of biota and establish Hauturu as New Zealand’s first fully characterised pristine model ecosystem. One of the most diverse groups of organism being sampled is the invertebrates, including insects, spiders, annelids, snails. This project involves sequencing candidate gene regions (COI and 28S) across a substantial sample of these animals, then conducting phylogenetic and ecological analysis in collaboration with bioinformaticians at the University of Auckland. Applicants should be interested in molecular ecology and phylogenetics. The project will be based at Plant & Food Research, Mt Albert, Auckland with visits to the University of Auckland. Opportunities exist to take this and related projects further into graduate studies (Hons, Master, PhD).
For further information please conduct Richard Newcomb
Email: Richard.Newcomb@plantandfood.co.nz
Web: http://www.bioscienceresearch.co.nz/staff/richard-newcomb/
Rapid molecular typing of insects
Leah Tooman, Richard Newcomb and Libby Burgess (Plant & Food Research, Mt Albert, Auckland)
Molecular markers have the power to identify insects from samples of any life-stage, while most morphological taxonomic methods typically focus only on adults. Plant & Food Research has large collections of invertebrates associated with a range of ecological experiments and would like methods to be developed to rapidly identify sampled individuals. The project would involve insect taxonomy, DNA extraction and sequencing of marker gene regions, as well as database population and analysis using standard phylogenetic methods. Applicants should be interested in entomology, molecular ecology and phylogenetics. They will have the opportunity to use the methods they develop to identify many unknown specimens to species level. The project will be based at Plant & Food Research, Mt Albert, Auckland. Opportunities exist to take this and related projects further into graduate studies (Hons, Master, PhD).
For further information please conduct Richard Newcomb
Email: Richard.Newcomb@plantandfood.co.nz
Web: http://www.bioscienceresearch.co.nz/staff/richard-newcomb/
Mathematical analysis of non-stationary models of speciation and extinction
The idea of treating speciation and extinction as independent random (markov) processes goes back to the 1920s and leads to testable predictions regarding the ‘shape’ of evolutionary trees. However, simple models do not always fit data well, and there is a current controversy as to how best to explain this – is it because these rates change with time due to environmental or climatic effects, or is the speciation and/or extinction more intrinsically determined, with rates that dependent primarily on the number of species? And do the rates vary across lineages? In this project we use both mathematical (differential equation) and statistical (probability modeling) techniques to address these questions. The project would particularly suit a beginning graduate-level mathematics student with an interest in applications, and possibly some experience with packages such as matlab or maple.
Supervisor: Prof. Mike Steel (University of Canterbury - Biomathamatics Research Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand).
Dates: Some period (by negotiation); preferably within the wider period of November 2011 and March 2012.
Value of studentship: NZ$5000 (tax free)