Switching Projects

Wow it's been a long time since I updated this blog. There's a very good reason for that-- I had all these great plans about how I was going to update as all my results came in and give a real-time look at the progress of science. Well, I have done exactly that, because the progress of science has been next to nil, especially in the lab. Here's the status of my Funaria project as of this week:

Phenotypes: For 300 sporophytes of Funaria, I took pictures of the seta (stalk), the capsule, and the spores, and tallied various things about them. I then used various statistical tests to observe some things about my Funaria populations, with some interesting results. For example, I found that within F. hygrometrica, there is significant correlation between size and latitude- sporophytes furthest north (like Ithaca, NY and Brattleboro, VT) were much smaller than sporophytes furthest south (like Durham, NC and Catlett, VA). This latitude gradient would be the perfect thing to explore further with DNA approaches...

Lab Work: I've now spent three months trying to develop microsatellites for Funaria, to use as DNA fingerprinting and paternity tests. Using two different methods, I've come up with only four sites in the whole genome that have the small repeating regions, and I don't even know if those are variable enough to use. This presents a problem, as microsatellites are expensive to develop and I don't really have much funding. Despite the promising results from my phenotype work, it appears I have a decision to make about the future of my PhD work.

Meanwhile, this semester I have adopted the project left over from another graduate student, for a class that I am taking. Originally it was just going to be me tying together some loose ends on the project and using the class as an excuse to take care of it. The project involves peatmoss, or Sphagnum, specifically the two species that I helped collect in my very first experience with mosses. I still have pictures from that field trip up here. It is a group of species that has always interested me, but I didn't want to "step on the toes" of another grad student's work. Now that he is no longer with the lab, further exploration of this group could fall to me. But should I switch projects now, after a year dead set on Funaria? I have to weigh the pros and cons of each:

Funaria hygrometrica
Advantages: Weedy, easy to find, grows in discrete clumps for easy population sampling, grows well in the greenhouse, has a short generation time, bisexual gametophytes.
Disadvantages: Expensive genetic marker development has not gone well, strong possibility of uninteresting results, between species issues unclear.

Sphagnum macrophyllum
Advantages: Extremely well developed genetic markers, known populations, interesting questions already established, project funded by the lab. Between-species issues easily studied.
Disadvantages: Does not grow well in the greenhouse, crossing experiments unlikely, populations much more spread out, many are asexual.

Part of the difficulty of deciding between them is that their advantages seem complimentary-- where one is unfit, the other thrives! I struggled with the decision for a month, but some signs kept popping up: I kept failing to identify microsatellites in Funaria, and my class project with Sphagnum was going well and getting my advisor and other professors pretty excited. I, meanwhile, was feeling relieved to have real data to analyze without worrying about whether all the lab work would be successful. In the end, most of the major topics I am interested in will not change with Sphagnum: I can still study inbreeding, I can still study mating systems, and I have a better chance to study speciation than I did with Funaria. The reasons to switch kept piling up and I officially made up my mind on Friday morning.

Of course, because these things always happen that way, on Friday afternoon I received an e-mail. It was from Sigma Xi, the research organization, notifying me that I would be awarded a Grant in Research. The proposal I had written months ago concerned funding to develop microsatellites for Funaria. I now have the funding for the project I convinced myself I no longer want to do! Luckily, it shouldn't be a problem for Sigma Xi if I use the money to study Sphagnum instead. Still, the irony is palpable. In any event, I got my first graduate research grant!

Look forward in the coming weeks for a general Restart of Gametophyte Junction. Now that I'm more clear about which project I want to do, I can give lots of background and details!