John Colbourne presented this seminar on Daphnia and their practical use in environmental genomics. I'm not much of a molecular biologist, but am fascinated by the opportunities it offers to further scientific knowledge, and by how rapidly the discipline is expanding. Therefore I thought it would be advantageous to attend this lecture and find out what the current, world leading techniques in environmental genomics entail.
Introduction to the subject
After a most informative introduction by Gary Carvalho, Professor Colbourne (Birmingham University and Chair of Environmental Genomics) introduced the subject of environmental genomics. He pointed out that of 60,000 chemicals regularly released into our water supply by industrial, or human driven, processes, only 7% have been tested for their toxicity, and no tests have been done on mixtures of these chemicals. He stated that all these tests have been conducted in laboratory experiments and bare little or no resemblance to the natural environments these chemicals may be found in. Therefore, any policy decisions made about major chemical spills are never rigorously, scientifically backed. The policies are usually based on wild, highly unscientific extrapolations of data collected on these chemicals, and therefore has little or no justified significance to the situations that the policies effect.
After a most informative introduction by Gary Carvalho, Professor Colbourne (Birmingham University and Chair of Environmental Genomics) introduced the subject of environmental genomics. He pointed out that of 60,000 chemicals regularly released into our water supply by industrial, or human driven, processes, only 7% have been tested for their toxicity, and no tests have been done on mixtures of these chemicals. He stated that all these tests have been conducted in laboratory experiments and bare little or no resemblance to the natural environments these chemicals may be found in. Therefore, any policy decisions made about major chemical spills are never rigorously, scientifically backed. The policies are usually based on wild, highly unscientific extrapolations of data collected on these chemicals, and therefore has little or no justified significance to the situations that the policies effect.
Colbourne and his 10 year old Daphnia Genomics Consortium (https://wiki.cgb.indiana.edu/display/DGC/Home) are hoping to become a world leading authority on using Daphnia to assess water quality in the natural environment, and help governmental policy making by providing real scientific research on individual environmental situations.
Daphnia
These are fantastic little creatures. Like many other undergraduate zoological scientists, I knew very little about them before this talk. I know invertebrates can be wonderful study organisms, but my research rarely brings them into my consciousness. Daphnia turn out to be a very interesting!
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| Daphnia galeata mendotae - (Gillespie, undated) |
They have the largest number of genes know for any one species, can change their entire morphology in one moult cycle, and can be found across the world. They also reproduce using cyclical parthenogenesis which means they are very useful as a high throughput study organism. Their high genetic variation, and morphological change in response to environmental factors means that they can be very useful for studying the chemical composition of water samples. This video gives a brief introduction to Daphnia and its genome.
Colbourne and the consortium are using the Daphnia to test hundreds of millions of different chemical compositions and see what the morphological response to these are. Daphnia themselves are a keystone species in most aquatic environments, so by testing their response to the chemicals, it may be possible to assess the effect of those chemicals on the entire ecosystem. Click this link to watch a video of John explaining why Daphnia are good study organisms and what the Daphnia project hopes to do and achieve.
Summary
Although a lot of the genetic jargon in this talk was beyond my current molecular understanding, I found the entire concept fascinating. Any species that can be so varied and abundant as Daphnia is interesting in its own right, but the fact it can be used in a practical, scientific, policy helping manner makes it all the more fantastic.
This talk has little relevance to my degree, or my intended career path, but I find it very interesting to know that these techniques exist, and I would be interested to find out the results the Consortium produce in the next decade.
References
Colbourne and the consortium are using the Daphnia to test hundreds of millions of different chemical compositions and see what the morphological response to these are. Daphnia themselves are a keystone species in most aquatic environments, so by testing their response to the chemicals, it may be possible to assess the effect of those chemicals on the entire ecosystem. Click this link to watch a video of John explaining why Daphnia are good study organisms and what the Daphnia project hopes to do and achieve.
Summary
Although a lot of the genetic jargon in this talk was beyond my current molecular understanding, I found the entire concept fascinating. Any species that can be so varied and abundant as Daphnia is interesting in its own right, but the fact it can be used in a practical, scientific, policy helping manner makes it all the more fantastic.
This talk has little relevance to my degree, or my intended career path, but I find it very interesting to know that these techniques exist, and I would be interested to find out the results the Consortium produce in the next decade.
References
Gillespie, J.H. (undated). Lake Sediments + Daphnia.
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