Looks like the soil samples successfully yielded DNA, which is visible as a high molecular-weight band on 1% gels. Using the environmental DNA as a template,the class also successfully amplified a portion of the bacterial 16S RNA gene. Not every band looked equally bright, and some sets of samples look a bit weak but overall it looks like everyone got useable DNA from their samples. Good work! except they are pretty crappy.
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Here are some photos from our field trip to some Durham watershed streams.
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Hi all, we’re looking forward to spending the semester with you. We will begin our course with a discussion of several recent papers on microbial ecology and evolution. Come to class prepared* to discuss one of the papers listed below (3 of you are assigned to each paper, hyperlinks will take you directly to the pdf as long as you are logged in to Duke’s network).
*Prepared = be able to
(1) summarize the principal findings of the paper
(2) describe the approach the authors took (in broad strokes, it is not necessary at this point to understand the details of the methodology)
(3) state a question or two about the conclusions and their implications
Everyone should read “The nineteenth century roots of ‘everything is everywhere”, a perspectives essay in Nature by Maureen O’Malley
(August, Davis, Friedman) –> Ley et al. 2008. Evolution of Mammals and their Gut Microbes. Science 320: 1647-1651
(Holzem, Kang, Kuang) –> Dinsdale et al. 2008. Functional metagenomic profiling of nine biomes. Nature 452:629-633
(Larkin, Lee, Marcus) –> Falkowski et al. 2008. The Microbial Engines the Drive Earth’s Biogeochemical Cycles. Science 320: 1034-1039
(Meyerowitz, Murphy, Schwarz) –> Green et al. 2008. Microbial biogeography: from taxonomy to traits. Science 320:1039-1043
(Voss, Winton, de Oca) He et al. 2010. Metagenomic analysis reveals a marked divergence in the structure of belowground microbial communities at elevated CO2. Ecology Letters 13: 564-575.
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