Biodiversity Research in Undergraduate Lab Courses

 

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2013, Volume 34

Stephanie Mel, Heather Henter & Mandy Butler

Abstract

As part of our effort to bring authentic research into large undergraduate Biology labs at UCSD, we have initiated a DNA barcoding project that seeks to document biodiversity in San Diego and to use this data to answer a variety of research questions. DNA barcoding uses a specific region within the cytochrome c oxidase (CO1) gene on mitochondrial DNA as a genetic marker. This region of the CO1 gene has been designated as the standard barcode sequence for animals by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) and can be used to verify the identity of known species and to identify potentially new species. The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) is an international collaboration whose mission is to compile DNA barcodes of all taxa and to establish a public library of vouchered sequences. At UCSD, students in Ecology lab classes collect specimens from the UCSD Natural Reserve, protected lands that are set aside for conservation, education, and research. Our goal is to create an inventory of species, particularly the poorly known invertebrate fauna. Students from Recombinant DNA Techniques labs purify DNA from the specimens and then use PCR to generate a partial sequence of the CO1 gene. This year we generated data for two different organisms, honeybees (Apis mellifera) and marine bristle worms (Polychaete species). Evaluation and comparison of the DNA sequences from different samples allows students to address research questions related to species diversity in the San Diego region. The power of this general approach is that methodology needed to generate barcodes is relatively inexpensive and straightforward, any organism can be barcoded, and these methods could be adapted to any lab course that has reagents for DNA purification, a PCR machine, access to a DNA sequencing facility, and the Internet.

Keywords:  undergraduate research

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2012)