Grace Seevers

26 April 2019

Purpose:

The objective of this lab was to upload soil metadata results to the excel sheet and label DNA samples in order to choose one to be sent for sequencing. Our groups finalized the lab posters for the symposium next week. A final draft of the abstract was written and posted on Box.

Procedure:

1. Fill out the shared excel spreadsheet with soil metadata.
2. Vote on Cillicure logo design.
3. Obtain and label soil and DNA samples “DPS22_Sp19”
4. Complete final draft of abstract and upload to box.
5. Complete final draft of poster and upload to Box.

Data:

Abstract

Ciliates are unicellular eukaryotic organisms that reside in freshwater or soil ecosystems. Ciliates are an important factor within the ecosystem because they consume different bacteria and protozoa, and act as a source of nutrition for organisms at higher trophic levels. The enormous discrepancy between the amount of research conducted on ciliates living in marine biomes versus ones living in the soil is due to a general lack of interest and/or knowledge of their importance. This experiment was conducted over the course of fourteen weeks in an effort to fill the gap between the amount of information known about marine and soil biodiversity by determining the overall composition of ciliates living in the rhizosphere of different trees across Baylor University’s campus. The V4 region of the 18S rRNA was observed because it is conserved within all eukaryotes and is unique to each specific organism. Soil samples were collected from the rhizosphere, where the highest concentration of ciliates are presumed to inhabit because of its abundance of nutrients and gas availability. After collection, the soil was searched for the presence of ciliates. Once the ciliates were isolated, their DNA was extracted and purified. The pure DNA was amplified through a polymerase chain reaction and ran through gel electrophoresis to determine whether or not eukaryotic DNA was present. Although our sample contained a very minute amount of DNA, if substantial DNA had been found, it would be sequenced using an online bioinformatics platform- QIIME2, to determine the specific organisms in our sample.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, our group worked together to submit our soil and DNA results and finalized our abstract and poster in preparation for the symposium. Our group is prepared to present our research and answer questions about ciliate biodiversity in the soil on Baylor’s Campus. In the future, a sample will be chosen to be sent off and next years class will analyze the results.