Hello fellow biology enthusiast, my name is Michael Maeker and this blog post is the first blog entry on the Phylogeny of Thomasomys research project. The goal of this research is to determine the structure of a phylogeny for a variety of of rodent species found by Dr. Thomas Lee and his research teams on the eastern slope of the Andes mountains in Ecuador. By using DNA from the liver tissue of the collected rodent samples we hope to conduct a phylogenetic analysis of the genus Thomasomys. The region of the Andes where the samples were collected have a wide variety of species. Studying the genetics of these species may provide insight into the history of the rodents in this area. The finding that prompted this research was a cytochrome-b sequence analysis which suggested a specimen identified as T. baeops was not most similar to previously studied T. baeops specimens. These results suggest the T. baeops may not be monophyletic.
Neighbor-joining tree of Thomasomys species based on cytochrome-b gene sequences.
See image in original publication here.
This summer I picked up work on this project with Dr. Josh Brokaw. The summer research was focused of running a series of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) experiments on a set of DNA samples from the rodents. The immediate goal is to get a PCR profile and primer set that will amplify the cytochrome-b from the mitochondrial DNA of all of our samples. After we achieve a well amplified product, we will get it sequenced and begin the phylogenetic study.
We recently received more samples collected by Dr. Lee and Grayson Allred this summer from the western slope of the Andes. These samples will be included in the phylogeny research. I will be posting more information and findings as I go.