Western Melanesian Herpetofauna Diversity
News and Updates
Concocting a Congress
11 September 2023
An exciting week of talks, workshops, networking and more made this year's Societas Europaea Herpetologica (SEH) European Congress of Herpetology a huge success. Simon, Deepak and I (Rebecca) formed part of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) along with Alice Pawlik, John Wilkinson, Kate Faulkner, Mark O'Shea, Natasha Kruger, Rémi Martin and Sharon Newill.
Simon, Deepak and I presented our previous or ongoing research in social science, turtle genomics and community ecology, respectively - good preparation for future conference presentations on Western Melanesian herps. We connected and reconnected with friends and colleagues working in genomics, evolution and ecology research, discussing the ongoing work on our project. We also joined a meal to kickstart the newly formed Amphibian Genomics Consortium, an international group of researchers dedicated to knowledge sharing and collaboration, widening the scope and impact of our project.
We were very proud of our efforts to put this event together, but we're looking forward to just presenting or attending conferences in the near future!
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The Local Organising Committee
Opening speeches at the congress
Merci Beaucoup Paris
21 August 2023
Last week, Deepak took a short trip to Paris with Mark O'Shea to collect some important historic samples at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle's (MNHN) extensive reptile collection. Dr Nicholas Vidal and Mathilde Aladini kindly facilitated, and Deepak took muscle tissue samples from a blind snake, a forest dragon and a gecko, whilst Mark photographed specimens for his morphological research.
Deepak, Nicholas and Mark at MNHN
Specimen at MNHN
Shiny New Lab at Wolves
29 July 2023
With an internal grant secured by Simon at the University of Wolverhampton, we were able to set up a dedicated laboratory space for DNA extractions and library preparations, complete with all new equipment and reagents. The new space will be carefully managed to minimise the risk of contamination to our precious and often rare samples, including a workstation for tissue preparation with UV sterilisation and optimised protocols to protect sample integrity. We recently started using the new facilities after receiving a large shipment of tissue samples from some key museum collections, with great results on DNA yield and purity. We also look forward to using this space to support the professional development of colleagues in high quality genomic techniques, as well as training post graduate students in pre-PCR lab methods specific to their individual projects.
New laboratory set up at the University of Wolverhampton
Sequences
31 May 2023
We're pumping out sequences for almost all of our target genera and almost all of our target mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Once we're satisfied with our PCR products, they're cleaned and prepared for sequencing before being loaded onto the Genetic Analyzer. It takes about 2 hours per 8 samples, so just over a day for a 96-sample plate. Once we have our sequences, they're tidied and prepped for phylogenetic tree building and analysis.
Sanger sequence outputs on Geneious Prime
Optimus Primer
08 May 2023
Background research, selection, testing, troubleshooting and sometimes redesigning primers is all part of the optimisation process. Once we have extracted the purified DNA from a tissue sample, we need to amplify certain regions of the genome that give us key information on our target species' evolution. These regions, or specific loci of target genes, require a unique primer pair for PCR amplification, and we have to get the conditions just right.
The process can be slow and frustrating, only knowing if we have succeeded after 2-3 hours preparation and waiting for the fluorescent bars to show in agarose following gel electrophoresis. After a few weeks experimenting, we have almost perfected all PCR cycling conditions for each primer pair, for each genus, for maximum efficiency and high quality outputs.
Gel electrophoresis