Adaptive Radiation, Speciation, and Community Assembly in Hawaiian Spiders and Insects
Rosemary Gillespie, Professor
Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
This project looks at how communities of organisms come together, and the role of ecology (migrating into a community, trophic level) and evolution (adaptation and speciation) in determining the composition of species in a community. This in turn will provide information on sensitivity to invasion and probability of speciation and extinction. To achieve our goal we are focusing on insects and spiders in Hawaii and combining a broad ecological approach based on species assembly and interaction patterns, with an evolutionary approach that examines how a given species group adapts, multiplies, or declines over time. The first approach addresses the diversity and abundance of species at a site and what are the kinds of predator-prey or other interactions between species. The second approach allows assessment of the rate at which a given lineage of organisms can adapt and diverge.
Role: Undergraduates involved in this project would be working on the the questions of evolutionary change and adaptation in different groups of Hawaiian insects and spiders, using either molecular or morphological approaches. For the morphological work, they may be imaging or sorting specimens (insects and spiders). For the molecular work, students will be trained generally in the lab, and in particular on Next Generation sequencing technologies, to measure evolutionary change. Techniques include: pcr, DNA/RNA extraction, next-generation sequencing methods, basic bioinformatics, sequence assembly/annotation. Learning Outcomes: This will depend on the part of the project with which the student becomes involved, and may include competency in microscopic work, familiarity with modern biological laboratory, and/ or computational techniques. We generally require students to participate in the sorting of arthropods by size into DNA extraction plates for at least one semester. Seniority in the lab group allows students to become involved in molecular methods, following assessment of an individuals attention to detail, ability to work independently, and interest in evolution and ecology.
Qualifications: Students should have completed or be currently enrolled in at least one semester of undergraduate coursework in the biological sciences (e.g. Biology 1B) and should have an interest in evolutionary biology, ecology and/or island biology.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Freddy Gutierrez, Ph.D. candidate
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Related website: https://nature.berkeley.edu/evolab/
Related website: https://nature.berkeley.edu/hawaiidimensions/