| It is rumored that Spotted Salamanders return to the same pools to breed every year. If this is true then the Salamander population may have a very low genetic diversity. Genetic diversity is essential to a healthy population. Our mission is to determine whether or not the salamanders have interbred because we want to know how healthy our amphibian friends are. Our goal is to measure the genetic diversity of the breeding population of spotted salamanders visiting the Wheaton Woods vernal pool. We hope to accomplish this using starch gel electrophoresis to examine allozymes extracted from tissue samples collected from animals captured in the population dynamics study. We are currently switching from ananlysis of allozymes to DNA and are in the process of amplifying salamander DNA using PCR. |
Current PI: Megan Wright
Faculty Sponsor: Barbara Brennessel
Content by Megan Wright '00