Job Title: Postdoctoral fellow
Location: Institute of Molecular BioSciences, Massey University, Albany
Supervisor and budget source: Prof David Lambert, Marsden funded project

How variable are evolutionary rates across vertebrates? An ancient DNA approach

The “molecular clock” hypothesis is based on the observation that the rate of change in a given region of DNA appears constant over time and organism. Some contend that an animal’s generation time and metabolic rate (e.g., warm-blooded vs. cold-blooded) affects this clock.

Professor David Lambert’s group are testing these ideas by directly measuring the rate of change in DNA in animals with different life spans and metabolic rates and from different classes: tuatara, kiwi, fish and humans. We obtain nucleotide sequence from both living and radiocarbon dated subfossil samples, analysed with novel statistical methods to accurately estimate the rate of change in Hypervariable region I of the mitochondrial control region DNA sequences. Prof. Lambert and Dr. Peter Ritchie have already obtained very high rates of evolution in Adélie penguins.

I am responsible for the tuatara portion of the project. Tuatara (Sphenodon) provide an extreme test of the molecular clock, because of their unique phylogenetic position, low metabolic rate and long generation time.

Currently, I have >100 tuatara control region sequences from extant island populations, and am extracting and sequencing DNA from tuatara bones collected from now extinct mainland populations. Bones are being radiocarbon dated for MCMC rate estimation. The data from extinct New Zealand mainland populations will also be compared with current populations, continuing my previous research on genetic variation in tuatara populations.

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Also visit: http://imbs.massey.ac.nz/Albany/research/dna_lab/group.htm#hay