Difference between revisions of "Graduate Research Symposium 2007"

Revision as of 20:01, 5 February 2007

The EEB Spring Symposium will be on Saturday, March 18th. This is an all day event where graduate students get a chance to present their research to other graduates and faculty in the department. Regardless of your research level, this symposium provides an opportunity to present project ideas and/or results in a low-stress atmosphere, and obtain valuable feedback from grads and faculty. Because this is an all day event, lunch and snacks will be provided by funds requested from the GSS by our graduate student GSS senators. Grads, please consider giving a talk, the submission deadlines are as follows: Title submission deadline: Friday, March 3rd Abstract deadline: Monday, March 13th Please submit Abstracts to: molly.letsch@uconn.edu Early submission of titles is encouraged! Hope to see you there!

9:00-9:15 Opening Remarks By Dean Ross MacKinnon

9:15-9:30 Norm Wickett

The phylogenetic significance of a large inversion in the chloroplast genome of a lineage of mosses

9:30-9:45 Carrie A. Fyler

Attachment in challenging environments: Functional morphology of three distinct scolex morphotypes of Acanthobothrium

Norm Wickett

The phylogenetic significance of a large inversion in the chloroplast genome of a lineage of mosses:

The Funariales is an order of mosses whose phylogenetic position is critical to our understanding of the evolution of the arthrodontous peristome (jointed teeth lining the opening of the sporangium that aid in spore dispersal), but within which the relationships remain unresolved. Variability in the peristome, which can be reduced or lost entirely, as well as the poorly differentiated gametophytes have led to difficulty in determining the relationships between the three families: Funariaceae, Disceliaceae, Gigaspermaceae and the closely related order Encalyptales. Previous studies have suggested that the Funariales is paraphyletic, with the Gigaspermaceae forming a sister-group relationship with the other families and the Encalyptales, though this hypothesis was not supported. Recently, the chloroplast genome of Physcomitrella patens (Funariaceae) was sequenced revealing the loss of the rpoA gene and a 71-kilobase inversion in the large single copy region. We sequenced both ends of the inverted region for exemplars from the Funariales, Encalyptales, and other mosses and determined that the inversion is present in the Funariaceae, Disceliaceae and Encalyptales, but not in the Gigaspermaceae or more distantly related mosses. These results support the hypothesis that the Encalyptales is nested within a paraphyletic Funariales.