Biology Seminar Series - 2012
Departmental seminars explore all aspects of biology, and are scheduled throughout the academic year. They are held on FRIDAYS, 2:30 - 3:30 p.m., in NCB 117 . Refreshments of some sort will be provided.
All queries should be directed to Amanda Moehring
All are welcome to attend!
Next Seminar :
February 10, 2012
Elizabeth Weretilnyk: "Mining for stress tolerance traits using a native ‘extremophile’ plant from the Yukon"
On average, over 50% of potential crop yields are lost each year through exposure of plants to poor environmental conditions including too much or too little water, excessive heat or cold, poor soil fertility or saline soil conditions. Key to realizing this lost potential is to improve the tolerance of plants to environmental stress. Towards this objective, our research exploits the adaptive traits of a rare native crucifer, Thellungiellasalsuginea, a plant that thrives in an extreme natural environment featuring highly alkaline and saline soils in the semi-arid, sub-Arctic, Yukon Territory of Canada. We are characterizing the physiological response of Thellungiella plants to water deficits, cold temperatures and low nutrients under controlled environment conditions. Transcriptome profiling by next-generation sequencing (RNA-seq) and metabolite profiling are complementary analyses that are being used to identify mechanisms underlying the abiotic stress tolerance of Thellungiella. Profiling is also being performed on tissue collected from plants found on salt flats in the Yukon. To date we have identified about 40k gene models expressed from 20k loci. The transcriptomes assembled for leaves of plants in growth cabinets and field sites are striking in their similarity despite the very different environmental conditions. Gene products showing consistent differential expression patterns will enable us to identify traits essential for stress tolerance in plants in cabinets and under very challenging field conditions.
Our research benefits from knowledge amassed for Arabidopsis thaliana, a close phylogenetic relative and important model in plant biology. However, extremophiles such as Thellungiella present important opportunities for comparative genomics approaches in order to identify novel stress tolerance traits that are either absent or only poorly expressed in Arabidopsis and many crops.
2012 Winter Term Seminar Schedule
| Speaker | Host | Institution | Title | |
| Jan. 13 | Paul Hebert | Brock Fenton | Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph | The International Barcode of Life (iBOL) Project |
| Jan. 20 | Trevor Pitcher | Brock Fenton | University of Windsor | Post-copulatory episodes of sexual selection for genetic quality in fishes |
| Jan. 27 | Melania Cristescu | Nusha Keyghobadi | University of Windsor | The Genetics of Aquatic Invasions: From Natural to Human Mediated Invasions |
| Feb. 3 | Chris Guglielmo | Jim Staples | University of Western Ontario | What I did on sabbatical: fun with birds, bats and a windtunnel |
| Feb. 10 | Elizabeth Weretilnyk | Susanne Kohalmi | McMaster University | |
| Feb. 17 | Andrew Hendry | Yolanda Morbey | McGill University | Ecological speciation (or the lack thereof) in guppies, stickleback, and Darwin's finches |
| Feb. 24 | Holiday | |||
| Mar. 2 | Steve Matter | Nusha Keyghobadi | University of Cincinnati | The effects of local population extinction for spatial population dynamics |
| Mar. 9 | David Schindler | Grad Students | University of Alberta | The oil sands: Economic saviour or environmental disaster? |
| Mar. 16 | Simon D.X. Chuong | Susanne Kohalmi | University of Waterloo | |
| Mar. 23 | Owen Rowland | Mark Bernards | Carleton /University | |
| Mar. 30 | John Copeland | Anthony Percival-Smith | University of Ottawa | Cell polarity regulation via the coordination of actin and microtubule dynamics by INF1 |
| Apr. 6 | Good Friday | |||
| Apr. 13 | Gordon Osinski | University of Western Ontario | The role of meteorite impact craters in the origin and evolution of life |
