Gaimari Visits Wiegmann Lab

In a three week visit in February 1997 to Brian Wiegmann's lab at North Carolina State University, Steve Gaimari began to use nucleotide sequence data for estimating phylogenetic relationships among several major lineages within the genus Ozodiceromyia. In addition, the placement of the genus within the Cyclotelus-group was assessed using the same data. The data obtained will be used together with, and compared to, analyses of morphological data underway.

The first week or so saw Steve learning the basic techniques for nucleic acids extraction and PCR of the DNA pieces of interest, as well as the preparation of the PCR products for sequencing. Steve and Brian decided that, considering the likely age of divergences among the taxa involved, the Cytochrome Oxidase (CO) I and II genes would be potentially good genes to target. For fifteen taxa (10 Ozodiceromyia, and 5 outgroup taxa, including a species from each of the following genera: Henicomyia, Pandivirilia, Brachylinga, Lysilinga, and Cyclotelus), the genes were amplified and sequenced (for both strands) from COI position 1751 to COII position 3389, using a variety of internal primers. Of course not every taxon amplified or sequenced exactly as planned on the first run-through, so different approaches needed to be taken to get as much of this sequence as possible for all the taxa. In the final week, the sequence data was cleaned up and aligned by eye as well as possible in this short amount of time. Steve plans to make another short trip to NC State to finish this part of his revision of Ozodiceromyia, and to contribute information on the Cyclotelus-group relative to other therevines.

Steve sends out his sincerest thanks to everyone in the lab for all their help in making this a fun experience, including Brian Cassel, Jason Cryan, Sonja Scheffer, Longlong Yang, and of course, Brian "The Scrabble King" Wiegmann. Also, Alex (Steve's 2-year old son) thanks Cassie for all her help!

Other Laboratory & Museum Visits & Exchanges