Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve

21 Aug, 07 AM - 22 Aug, 10 AM

Mapping the Distribution of the Bacteria Wolbachia among Wild Drosophila Populations in California Wolbachia is a bacterial parasite that infects more than 15% of all known insect species. Its world-wide distribution and ability to spread rapidly through insect populations have recently generated considerable excitement in the scientific community. For example, the biomedical community is interested in the bacteria because Wolbachia infected insects provide a safe, efficient model system for analyzing the spread of pathogens, and scientists in applied fields believe Wolbachia has potential as a potent alternative to pesticides in controlling harmful insect populations. Cell and developmental biologists are also investigating the parasite for the insights it can provide for their basic science research. They have, for instance, discovered that Wolbachia often disrupts early development of insect embryos and many investigators believe it may play an important role in insect speciation. Despite such wide spread interest, a large-scale mapping of insect population distribution of Wolbachia has never been attempted. . Recent technological advances, such as PCR-based purification approaches, have simplified many of the tasks involved in data collection and analysis. Currently I am a member of a large NSF sponsored project to globally map Wolbachia infection throughout diverse insect populations. We would like to use the facilities at Big Creek reserve to collect Drosophila and other insects. we envision this as one of the five or six primary sites along the west coast of California.

Visit #5792 @Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve

Approved

Under Project # 4514 | Research

Mapping the endosymbiont Wolbachia in California insect populations

faculty - University of California, Santa Cruz

Reservation Members(s)

Group of 4 Other Aug 21 - 22, 2004 (2 days)
Bill Sullivan Aug 21 - 22, 2004 (2 days)
Group of 3 Research Scientist/Post Doc Aug 21 - 22, 2004 (2 days)

Reserve Resources(s) | Create Invoice

Redwood Camp 8 Aug 21 - 22, 2004