Science
I am a PhD candidate at McGill University in Montreal, studying the distribution of marine animal communities across time and space using environmental DNA
Seawater filtering!
Animal diversity and environmental DNA
Animals constantly shed DNA into their environment, so by filtering this DNA out of a water sample and sequencing it, one can determine what animals were nearby when the sample was taken. I use this method, called environmental DNA, to identify nearshore marine animals off the coast of British Columbia, Canada.
With my lab at McGill University, I study the diversity of animals whose DNA we find to better understand who lives where, and why.
For a preview, see my ESA/CSEE 2022 poster or check out the Sunday Lab Website
Biogeography
Temperate coastlines are one of the most rapidly changing systems on the globe. My environmental DNA work aims to sample the entire North American west coast and integrate with biodiversity “big data” so that we can observe these patterns in as many animals as possible.
Studying these patterns and what drives them on a continental scale is called biogeography.
Environmental DNA collected by the Pacific eDNA Coastal Observatory (PECO) forms a central part of my research. As the analysis is in its earliest stages, there will be more to come soon!
Central coast BC from the float plane on the way to Calvert Island
Neopilionid from New Zealand
Sketches of South African Triaenonychids
Museum Work and Arachnology
During my time at Harvard, I worked in the Arachnid and Myriapod collection in the Invertebrate Zoology department of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. My work had two main components; museum curatorial work and arachnology research.
In the museum, I helped to manage the physical collection — quite literally spiders and millipedes in jars of alcohol that could be recently collected or from the 1800’s. This involved both straightforward tasks such as rejarring, reshelving, or labeling specimens and more complex tasks such as organizing our 1905-1910 millipede type collection from Carl Attems. These types of projects require reconciling old physical records included with the specimen, historical papers, and the digital database in order to give old specimens new life in current research.
Arachnology wise, I study the systematics and biogeography of Opiliones — also called harvestmen or daddy long legs. They are a really cool kind of arachnid that is often mistaken for spiders, but are just their own unique group. My projects have included the families Triaenonychidae and Neopilionidae, both families with what is called a “Gondwanan” distribution. That is, their ancestors all lived on the supercontinent Gondwana over 180 million years ago, which used to be the southern part of the supercontinent Pangea. During the end of the time of the dinosaurs, Gondwana broke into Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Madagascar and that is where you can go to find these animals today.
It is possible to use genetics to determine which members of those families came from common ancestors, and trace the history of this continental breakup that shapes where animals live today. I was responsible for generating data by sequencing genetic markers from specimens and compiling them into evolutionary trees. I then collaborated with with Harvard grad students and collaborators from other institutions to incorporate this data into larger projects.