Summer StudentshipsThe Allan Wilson Centre offers students considering post grad research the opportunity to experience lab work as part of project team. Projects are available at all the AWC partner sites. When projects are listed candidates are encouraged to apply for those that interest them. For further information contact Joy Wood. AWC Summer Studentships for 2010/2011Summer Studentships funded by the Centres of Research Excellence Fund are offered by the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution and they are valued at $5,000 each, tax-free. The Studentships are to enable students to undertake a project for eleven weeks – including a break over Christmas.
Using seaweed DNA to study the evolutionary impacts of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere : Phylogeography of the brown seaweed Desmarestia ligulata
The project will involve:
AWC Summer Studentship: Developing Genetic Markers for Stick Insects from Pyrosequencing DataThis project involves the development of DNA sequence markers from stick insect 454 transcriptome data. The research will include the selection of gene markers, design of primers and screening of markers for variation and orthology. The lab work will also involve some DNA extraction, PCR and Sanger DNA sequencing. Selected markers will be sequenced in stick insects from around the world. There is also the opportunity for some downstream analysis of the sequences, including alignment and phylogenetics. The ultimate aim of the project is to develop a robust global phylogeny of stick insects. The position will be based in the Ecological Genetics Laboratory at Landcare Research on the Tamaki campus. For more details see here and here.
Time-Travelling OrganismsSince the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, phylogenetic (evolutionary) trees have successfully represented life’s history. However, it is now well documented that for many evolutionary scenarios, evolution is more accurately described by a tangled graph reflecting how organisms inherit their DNA from several ancestors. Mathematics underlies modern tree reconstruction methods, but network reconstruction is far more difficult. This project investigates some claims and related problems concerning phylogenetic network reconstruction. It has recently been claimed that, given an initial set of data, there does not always exist a phylogenetic network realizing the data set. Given the representation flexibility of networks in comparison to trees, this is a quite a strong claim and seems somewhat suspicious. Indeed, if correct, it would imply the existence of time-travelling ancestral organisms so as to be consistent with present-day observations. Using combinatorial and algorithmic techniques, the purpose of this project is to investigate this claim and related problems. Supervisor: Associate Professor Charles Semple
Haemolysis of pathogenic Escherichia coli: a selection phenotype for isolation and a tool for molecular evolution studies
Key tasks for the project
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The proposed summer bursary project would tie in with an ongoing project looking at the impacts of climate change on marine intertidal flora (seaweeds) around the Southern Hemisphere. The scope of the broad project aims to use genetic techniques (phylogeography – studying geographic patterns of genetic variation) to test whether sea-ice wiped out whole populations of seaweed from the subantarctic islands during the last Ice Age (20,000 years ago). This will help us to understand how much sea-ice was around the subantarctic at the last Ice Age. We are looking at genetic patterns in species that we think are affected by ice, as well as some species that we think are not. We expect to see higher levels of genetic variation in ice-resistant species around the subantarctic, as those populations will theoretically have been able to persist throughout the Ice Age. The summer bursary student will work on one of these species (possibly two, depending on whether or not lab work – e.g., primer development – is successful at an early stage). The species that will form the focus of this project is Desmarestia ligulata, a brown seaweed that grows around New Zealand, Chile and some subantarctic islands. Collections have already been made from the Falkland Islands and southern Chile, but the summer bursary student will be able to collect samples from along the coast of Otago (and possibly further afield) by snorkel. Field support will be provided.
Haemolysis of red blood cells is a characteristic phenotype of some pathogenic Escherichia coli strains associated with cattle and sheep that are also able to cause human disease. The E. coli reside harmlessly in their ruminant host but ingestion of contaminated food or exposure to faecal material within the environment may cause human diarrhoeal disease. This summer scholarship will complement on-going work within the mEpiLab (Molecular Epidemiology, Public Health and Infectious Diseases Laboratory,