NSF Award Abstract - #0208364

AWSFL008-DS3

BAC Libraries from Diverse Crustacean Taxa

Abstract

.0208364 Thomas

One of the fundamental goals of biology is to understand how genome structure and function evolves in response to environmental change and how genetic constraints limit the natural distribution, abundance, and adaptive evolution of species. Toward these goals, Dr. Thomas is proposing to develop Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC) libraries for diverse crustacean taxa. These libraries are specifically intended to support both comparative developmental studies and investigations into how organisms respond to environmental change. The Crustacea are ideal for comparative developmental studies because of their extraordinary morphological diversity, and close relationship to the premier developmental model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. Crustacean taxa are also the focus of many ecological studies aimed at understanding the fundamental interactions between organisms and their environment. The proposed BAC library resources and their distribution will provide critical tools in support of developmental evolution and environmental genomics. Dr. Thomas is specifically proposing to develop BAC libraries for three taxa representing three crustacean classes. The Branchiopods are represented by the water flea, Daphnia pulex. The Maxillapoda are represented by a copepod Tigriopus californicus, and the class Malacostraca is represented by an amphipod, Parhyale hawaiensis. Daphnia and Parhyale are already the subjects of comparative developmental studies in numerous laboratories. This work will take place in collaboration with a set of primary users who are actively participating in this proposal by consulting on the appropriate taxa, supplying specimens for DNA extraction and helping to make these resources available and useful to their taxon- or discipline-specific communities. These collaborators represent disparate fields of biological research and represent a broad spectrum of the potential user community. The generation and distribution of each library will take place at the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies (HCGS) at the University of New Hampshire under the direction of the PI (co-director of the center). The HCGS has a primary focus of comparative and environmental genomics, and in conjunction with this proposal will be offering intensive summer workshops in genomic technologies to support the use of BAC libraries by students and postdocs. BAC library resources from each taxon will be made available to all academic and non-academic users in two ways: 1) as complete arrayed copies of the library; and 2) arrayed at high density on nylon filters. The BAC resources and associated information will be accessible via the WWW. The HCGS will maintain and distribute these resources for a minimum of five years after the end of the granting period.