Announcement
wsbs-presentation.pdf 2.79 MB
Wsbs Presentation
N.A.Pertzov White Sea Biological Station (WSBS MSU) invites undergraduate and graduate students studying zoology and ecology to participate in summer field school on Molecular Zoology, which will take place in September, 6-20 2009.
“THE WHITE SEA MOLECULAR ZOOLOGY SCHOOL” will provide a unique opportunity to get on-hand experience of wide array of molecular genetics methods and tools used in modern zoology. You are invited to spend two weeks in marvelous natural settings and friendly environment at small biological station located in pristine location called “Velikaya Salma” (“Great straight”) of the Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea exactly on the Polar Circle.
During two weeks you will be involved in organismal and ecological fieldwork, laboratory data collection, and analytical work. The course will emphasize the use of molecular tools to address ecological and environmental questions.
The number of participants is limited to 12 people. Working language is English
Limited financial support to cover accommodation and tuition will be provided by the Biological Department of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University and Russian Foundation of Basic Research, however travel and meal expenses will be provided by the participants.
The meal expenses will be near 10 euro per day. The price of train ticket from Moscow to WSBS and back will be about 250 euro.
Syllabus
- Faunistic survey of diverse marine fauna in different biotopes: littoral fauna, benthic study with grabs and corers, plankton sampling from research vessel;
- Washing and processing and preliminary identification of benthic samples, introduction to quantitative ecology sampling methods.
- Overview of major groups of invertebrates inhabiting the White Sea, determination of species with taxonomic keys, primer on zoological drawings.
- DNA extraction. Overview of applicability of different protocols.
- PCR with standard barcoding (COI) primers , agarose electrophoresis, pre-sequencing PCR-product purification
- PCR-RFLP analysis for species identification
- PCR with microsatellite (SSR) primers, — acrylamide electrophoresis, EtBr staining.
- Demonstration of other methods such as TA-cloning of PCR products, RNA extraction and RT-PCR (optional, subject to availability of time, reagents, equipment and luck supply)
- Sequence analysis. Contig construction, quality checking of nucleotide sequence, and BLAST and BLAT algorithms.
- Molecular Genetic databanks (GenBank etc.,) and other available resources on the Internet.
- Discussion Barcoding approaches and approaches of sequence identification.
- Introduction to molecular ecology and population genetics analyses including estimation of allele frequency of microsatellite loci, statistical analysis of population differentiation, coalescence approaches.
- Introduction to phylogenetic analysis. (PAUP, Mr.Bayes, PAML, etc.)
Morning hours lectures (9:30 am – noon will be followed by laboratory practicals (1 pm till 7 pm), except the days dedicated to full-day or half-day excursions for specimens collection, either on board of research vessel “Belomor” or from the shore on littoral zone. Exact schedule of field trips will be adjusted according to weather and tides.
Tentative list of lecturers
Dr. Ken Halianych https://gump.auburn.edu/halanych/lab/
Dr. Mikhail Matz https://www.biosci.utexas.edu/ib/faculty/matz.htm
Dr. Alex Kondrashov https://www.eeb.lsa.umich.edu/eeb/people/kondrash/index.html
Dr.Tatiana Azhikina (Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow) https://humgen.siobc.ras.ru/people/people.html
Dr.Tatiana Neretina (WSBS) https://wsbs-msu.ru/doc/index.php?ID=22
Dr.Anna Zhadan (WSBS) https://wsbs-msu.ru/doc/view.php?ID=44
Prof. Yuriy Lebedev (Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow) https://labcfg.ibch.ru/index.html
Dr. Nikolai Mugue (Institute of Developmental Biology RAS / VNIRO, Moscow) https://idbras.comcor.ru/indexe.HTM
Contact e-mail: wsbs.school@gmail.com
For participation in this school please fill the form and send it before the 30th of March, 2009.
Pre-registration Form
Name …………………………………………………………………
Affiliation ………………………………………………………………
Taken classes …………………………………………………………
Experience of fieldwork ………………………………………………
Why are you interesting in this summer school?
