Life Sciences Commons^™

Rare Occurrences Of Free-Living Bacteria Belonging To Sedimenticola From Subtidal Seagrass Beds Associated With The Lucinid Clam, Stewartia Floridana, Aaron M. Goemann

Masters Theses

Lucinid clams and their sulfur-oxidizing endosymbionts comprise two compartments of a three-stage, biogeochemical relationship among the clams, seagrasses, and microbial communities in marine sediments. A population of the lucinid clam, Stewartia floridana, was sampled from a subtidal seagrass bed at Bokeelia Island Seaport in Florida to test the hypotheses: (1) S. floridana, like other lucinids, are more abundant in seagrass beds than bare sediments; (2) S. floridana gill microbiomes are dominated by one bacterial operational taxonomic unit (OTU) at a sequence similarity threshold level of 97% (a common cutoff for species level taxonomy) from 16S rRNA genes; …

Population Structure Of Late Blight (Phytophthora Infestans) In Colombia And Ecuador And Downy Mildew (Peronospora Farinosa F. Sp. Spinaciae) On Spinach In Arizona And California, Rebecca Marie Lyon

Masters Theses

In this study, Phytophthora infestans and Peronospora farinosa f. sp. spinaciae populations were analyzed using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In Ecuador and Colombia, Phytophthora infestans causes significant damage to potato and tomato and the epidemiology is known to be highly clonal. Our objective was to measure population structure within the context of this clonal epidemiology using both synonymous and nonsynonymous markers. Candidate SNP sites were selected by comparing the draft genomes of the Ecuadorian isolates EC1-3527 and EC1-3626. Genotypes were assessed directly from infected tissue using a targeted sequencing approach. A total of 54 polymorphic sites were assessed in 93 …

Distribution Of Abc Transporter Genes Across The Plant Kingdom, Thomas Scott Lane

Masters Theses

The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter gene superfamily is ubiquitous among extant organisms. ABC transporters act to transport compounds across cellular membranes and are involved in a diverse range of biological processes and functions including cancer resistance in humans, drug resistance among vertebrates, and herbicide resistance in weeds. This superfamily of genes appears to be larger and more diverse in the plant kingdom—yet, we know relatively less about ABC transporter function in plants compared with mammals and bacteria. Therefore, we undertook a plant kingdom-wide transcriptomic survey of ABC transporters to better understand their diversity.

We utilized sequence similarity-based informatics techniques to …