Monitoring changes in species: Africanization in U.S. honeybees

 

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2009, Volume 30

Marianne Niedzlek-Feaver, Patricia Aune, & Miriam Ferzli

Abstract

As part of our first semester of the introductory biology lab that introduces the scientific method, evolution, ecology and diversity, we were particularly interested in developing an exercise that gave students an opportunity to work with molecular data, given its increasing utility for phylogenetic studies. This exercise also enables us to introduce electrophoresis as a tool for separating DNA and proteins in general and to emphasize the use of biotechnology by ecologists and evolutionary biologists. However, our students are not exposed to cellular structure and function until the second semester of biology, so we had to develop an exercise that required little background knowledge of inheritance patterns by our students.

Keywords:  electrophoresis, phylogenetic analysis

University of Toronto, Mississauga (2008)