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HOME > OUTREACH [Teachers Experiencing the Antarctic]
[Indian Island School - Antarctica] [Long
Island HS Students] Upward Bound is a federally funded program which assists qualified students to improve their skills in high school and to prepare to enter and succeed in college. The Connell Lab has participated in the program for several years and helped mentor students working on a variety of projects. Learn more about the UMaine Upward Bound including program history, application information, forms and FAQs.[READ MORE]
The food chain presented in the universe is a very complex figure, with many complications through the way it functions. One of these complications involves red tide. Red tide is a marine algae, consisting of 60 species diverted throughout the world, some of which are toxic. When red tide is consumed by clams, shellfish, or other marine organisms, a toxin is released into the organisms body, then when a human eats that organism, the toxin is carried over with the consumed meat, releasing Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning. Many organal complications follow along with the consumption of the poisoning, leaving individuals with serious illness for months, or even death. Two of the most common toxic red tide species in the New England location are Alexandrium ostenfeldii, and Alexandrium tamarense. By counting the cells, and extracting the RNA of these two Alexandriums, the growth rate that these two algae posses, and the concentration of the RNA throughout the life cycle can be calculated. While analyzing the data received from this project, conclusions had come out to be that the results failed to reject my null hypothesis. The life cycle of both Alexandriums were very unstable during the first couple of weeks, then by the third week of the growth, the algae both showed a rapid increase in the number of cells possessed in the cultures. The RNA concentration is not available at the time, with technologcal malfunctions, however previous studies have shown the RNA increases as the algae grows, then as the algae experiences its "adult years" the RNA takes a standstill concentration, reaming like that for the majority of its life.
Yeast are eukaryote living micro-organisms, part of the Fungi Kingdom, that live in soils, consuming glucose and are also considered a fungus and/or a mushroom. But what species of yeast are important to learn about are ones growing in harsh environment soils in Antarctica. How these species of yeast are growing in one of the worlds “harshest environments” is the big question. To figure out how these yeast are growing in these harsh environments the first step is to know what type of species of yeast are growing. Laurie Connell’s work at the Microbiology Lab at the University Maine is to identify many different species of yeast. There some Antarctic yeast are stored, put through many protocols to obtain the yeast DNA, sent to the DNA Sequencing Lab, and then identified. By doing so we’ll be able to know the yeast genus, what environment the yeast used to grow in before being covered in glaciers, whether the yeast was or is a mushroom or fungus, and if this yeast can be found elsewhere other than Antarctica.
At the present time there are no good methods to extract/isolate genomic DNA from clay soil samples. This is a problem for who scientists who work with clay soils. The paper is about the testing of a new method for isolating DNA from clay soil. This method used gelatin, which was tested against a current method of isolation. The goal of the experiment was to try to develop better methods for the isolation of DNA from clay soils. The gelatin has been used before but never tested on clay soils in this way.
The Genetic Characterization of a Softshell Clam Population in New Brunswick, Canada / Tom Phan (2009) - Best Project Award Softshell clams are important commercial bivalve species in the north Atlantic coast. A number of populations have developed a DNA mutation that makes them resistant to the saxitoxin produced by Alexandrium spp., a species of dinaflagellate. A genetic population study is used to observe the spread of the mutation. In a population of clams from Beaver Cove, New Brunswick, Canada 77.78% were found to be resistant and 22.22% were foudn to be heterozygous with no sensitive genotypes observed. Beaver Cove is an area with high annual red tides. This supports the hypothesis that the higher the frequency of red tide, the higher the frequency of clams with the mutant gene.
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The
Life Cycle of Red Tide Algae: RNA Extraction / Megan Young (2011)
Antarctic
Yeast Isolate Identification / Melissa Trotter (2010)
Effect
of Gelatin Pre-treatment on DNA Extraction from Clay Soil / Michael
Zalatin (2010)