The Confluence
Document Type
News
Abstract
Ants are species diverse, widespread, and critically important to their environments. For many ant species, we do not have clear data on their ranges. Barcoding US Ants is a citizen science project run by the DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to collect and sequence DNA from ants from around the country (CSHL, 2020). The sequences are submitted to GenBank, the DNA sequence database (NIH 2020). We formed one of the Ozarks Region teams for the Barcoding US Ants project, contributing ants from riparian forests and grassy meadows in the St. Charles, MO area. We collected 8 ant species, contributing 3 new polymorphisms to GenBank and 2 species currently underrepresented in GenBank. Thus, we have contributed data on current ant species ranges that can be used to track range shifts that result from climate change.
Recommended Citation
Woltz, Megan
(2021)
"Barcoding US Ants: Ozarks Region - Research Highlight,"
The Confluence: Vol. 1:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62608/2150-2633.1005
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/theconfluence/vol1/iss1/3
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Author Bio
Shea Lanier and Mary O’Heron are pursuing BS degrees in Biological Sciences with emphasis in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Lindenwood University. Avanté Ford completed his BS in Biological Sciences with emphasis in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Lindenwood University in May 2021. Dr Albee has a PhD in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been teaching at Lindenwood since 2013. Dr Woltz has a PhD in Entomology and Ecology from Michigan State University and has been teaching at Lindenwood since 2015.