C.P. Gillette Museum Hosts Canadian
Researchers for Genetic Bar Coding Project
There is often a continuous stream of researchers at the C.P. Gillette Museum of Arthropod Diversity on the campus of Colorado State University. A recent team found themselves in Fort Collins for a rather large genetic bar coding project. Researchers from the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, Canada “mined” the CSU collection for genetic information on Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). It is the most ambitious project of its type for any arthropod group.
Using Cutting-Edge Science
“A very exciting world-wide project” is how Dr. Paul Opler, assistant director of the museum, describes the effort. He and the museum's director, Dr. Boris Kondratieff, have been working with the researchers for some time.
Genetic bar coding is a cutting edge science where information on mitochondrial DNA is acquired from biological specimens. This approach is a new way of examining life forms and has many valuable potential applications. Among them is ability to:
- help clarify the relatedness of different organisms
- recognize the existence of unrecognized new species that are difficult to determine by taxonomic characters. (Or vice versa, ability to indicate that organisms previously separated taxonomically may be more closely related.)
Genetic bar coding is considered to be a powerful new tool that, combined with strong taxonomy, can expand our understanding of life on the planet.
Museum Houses Valuable Specimens
There are several reasons why the collections at the C.P. Gillette Museum are so valuable to this project:
- Overall, the insect collections of the Museum are extensive and particularly well represent the insects found in the western US. It is a gem of a biological repository that is extremely well appreciated by all researchers who visit the Museum.
- It is a dynamic collection that is continually acquiring new material. This material comes both from new collections made by a host of people associated with the University or interested in the collections, but also through donations of biological material from people who are passing on their life’s work to the C.P. Gillette Museum. Tens of thousands of new specimens are added annually and it ranks right near the top of any U.S. university arthropod collection for current activity.
- DNA bar coding is best done on recently collected material, as older specimens degrade.
The combination of the extensiveness of the Lepidoptera holdings the CSU Museum houses, their expert curation/identification, and the recentness of the collection coalesce to make CSU a perfect place to conduct the genetic bar coding research.
One of the researchers, Alex Borisenko, states, “It was certainly a thrill to work with experts of Dr. Opler’s and Dr. Kondratieff’s caliber and to see the huge collection holding at CSU which are a unique biodiversity library with potential to sustain many projects such as ours for years to come.” Dr. Borisenko looks to include CSU with the research of The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario which is leading the International Barcode of Life Initiative (IBOL). The overall project looks to consolidate the efforts of biodiversity and molecular researchers worldwide by creating a reference DNA data bank of all living organisms that will aid researchers for years to come.
Next Steps for the Museum and its Research
“It is very likely that the bar-code team will visit again later in the year,” explains Dr. Opler, who says there are several bar coding projects in the future. “Several may incorporate this program in their research.”
The C.P. Gillette Museum has high hopes of finding a new space to house the museum that allows for adequate and quality storage, for extensive laboratory work, and for creative displays of the collection that will replace their current location in Laurel Hall. Although the museum is a world-renowned leader in the industry, there are great facility improvements yet to be made.