Automated liquid handling workstation for research in ecology and evolution

过去30年见证了分子技术令人难以置信的进步，这些进步已经渗透到生物学的各个领域，包括生态学、保护生物学和进化生物学。高分辨率分子标记或关键基因组表达谱的调查可以提供对种群和群落动态、交配系统、适应、扩散和种群连通性、进化关系和物种起源的见解。反过来，这些数据可为管理受保护物种、人为造成的生境破碎化和其他人为活动的影响以及气候变化对物种分布的影响提供信息。然而，解决与这些主题相关的问题通常需要我们收集和处理来自100或1000个个体的样本，并调查越来越多的DNA标记（bbb20）。此外，基因表达、生态基因组学和复活生态学研究的新方法需要非常小的液体体积的高精度aliquote。在这里，我们建议购买一个Biomek NXP实验室自动化工作站，这将增加研究生和博士后培训的质量和数量；允许我们显著增加我们运行的基因座和样本的数量，iii。提高基因分型和基因表达分析的效率，降低成本/样本，iv.允许我们探索新的研究途径，特别是与基因表达，适应的遗传基础和生态基因组学相关的研究。该设施将由申请表上列出的11名生物学院共享（占本系终身教职人员总数的三分之一），每年至少有2名博士后、10名研究生和15名本科论文学生使用，并在成本回收的基础上向所有其他终身教职和兼职生物学同事开放。

The last 3 decades have borne witness to incredible advances in molecular techniques that have permeated all fields of biology, including ecology, and conservation and evolutionary biology. Surveys of high-resolution molecular markers or expression profiles of suites of key genes can provide insights into population and community dynamics, mating systems, adaptation, dispersal and population connectivity, evolutionary relationships, and species origins. In turn, such data may inform management of species of conservation concern, impacts of human-caused habitat fragmentation and other anthropogenic activities, and the influence of climate change on species distributions. Addressing questions related to these themes, however, typically requires that we collect and process samples from 100s or 1000s of individuals and survey increasing numbers of DNA markers (>20). Moreover, new methods in studies of gene expression, ecological genomics and resurrection ecology require highly-accurate aliquoting of very small liquid volumes. Here we propose to purchase a Biomek NXP Laboratory Automation Workstation that will i. augment the quality and quantity of graduate student and postdoc training, ii. allow us to significantly increase the number of loci and samples we run, iii. improve the efficacy of genotyping and gene expression analysis reducing cost/sample, and iv. permit us to explore new avenues of research particularly related to gene expression, the genetic basis of adaptation and ecological genomics. The facility will be shared among the 11 biology faculty listed on this application (one third of the tenured faculty complement in our department), be used by a minimum of 2 postdocs, 10 graduate students and 15 undergraduate thesis students per year, and be made available to all other tenured and adjunct biology colleagues on a cost recovery basis.