Author: Laura ForrestPage 1 of 5
Molecular laboratory technician and bryologist, focusing on liverworts and DNA barcoding, with a PhD in Begoniaceae phylogenetics.
A specimen of Pyrus communis, the pear tree, was collected for the DToL project by Dr Markus Ruhsam at the Hermitage of Braid in Edinburgh on the 31st May 2022.
We have already seen the release of the thousandth Darwin Tree of Life genome, the Purple Bar moth, Cosmorhoe ocellata. To celebrate this festive season, we have considered what we have given, or might like to receive, for our own twelve days of Christmas…
The thalloid liverwort Aneura pinguis (L.) Dumort. (basionym Jungermannia pinguis L.) has been reported from a bewildering range of climates and habitats, from neotropical cloud forests to Scottish…
The simple thalloid liverwort Aneura has become a flagship genus for DNA barcoding at RBGE. Only a single widespread species, Aneura pinguis, is traditionally recognized in the UK,…
Even with a plant as common, and as commonly overlooked, as this pollution-tolerant urban bryophyte, there is still genetic diversity to explore and explain.
Following on from the rather unpredictable results we obtained from fragmenting duplicate aliquots of CTAB-extracted Polytrichum DNA in the Bioruptor, Isuru cleaned aliquots of IK31 and IK53 using…
When we’re working out a protocol or troubleshooting, we spend a lot of time quantifying small quantities of fluids, looking at DNA concentrations on the DeNovix, running tapes…
We started our lab work on the Polytrichum hybrid baits project on the 1st of October, by normalising some CTAB-extracted DNA with 0.1X TE to 55 µL of…
The current Next Gen Sequencing lab project at the Botanics involves looking at the phylogeny of Polytrichum section Polytrichum, using hybrid capture. The work will form part of…
After testing bead-to-sample ratios of 30:50, 35:50, 40:50, 50:50 and 60:50 on a Thermo Scientific™ GeneRuler™ 50 bp DNA Ladder, using Beckman Coulter AMPure XP beads, we focused…
When we made our Begonia libraries, working with (in some cases) relatively small quantities of very degraded DNA, we should have diluted the adaptors. We didn’t. Consequently, we…
For one of the taxa in our study set, Begonia scottii (living collection no. 20170076), we made a few replicate DNA extractions using Qiagen DNeasy plant mini-kits, and…
The set of DNA extractions from one of our test plants (#8, Begonia stictopoda RBGE accession 20170115) contained rather low concentrations of DNA. We decided against preparing NGS…
There’s an exciting project, The 10KP (10,000 Plants) Genome Sequencing Project, that aims to sequence and characterize representative genomes from every major clade of embryophytes, green algae, and…
Keen to see the effects of different specimen preservation techniques on DNA quantity and quality, we have assessed extractions of DNA from nine Begonia accessions x seven preservation…
In order to look at the effects of herbarium preservation methods on DNA quality, Hannah Wilson and Mark Hughes took a trip down to our research glasshouses, and…
The megadiverse genus Begonia L. is one of the world’s largest plant genera, comprising over 1,800 species, an estimated 200 of which are endemic to New Guinea. A…
When working out new protocols, it’s very useful to have a big stash of DNA to test them on. Just now, in a collaborative project with Dr Michelle…
The leafy liverwort genus Nardia has five species that are known to occur in Scotland. Of these five species that occur in Scotland, four are described in Smith’s…
Dr Des Callaghan spends rather a lot of his time chasing after rare things. He’s an environmental consultant with many strings to his bow, but a particular specialisation…