Short clip of adult female rotifer feeding on yeast, made by holding digital camera up to eyepiece of 200X compound microscope. Filmed by Lauren Zerbib.
Much of my research effort focuses on laboratory studies of the Monogonont rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus (See McGill University’s useful introduction to this species). Helped by a large group of undergraduates, I am tracking individual daily survival and reproduction of a population of 400 rotifers. Each adult rotifer is kept in a separate well of a 96-well microtiter plate, allowing high confidence not only in individual identity, but also in genealogy.
To my knowledge this is the first study of rotifers to combine high resolution individual life history data with a complete multi-generational genealogy. Every day we record reproduction, survival and genealogical information for every member of the population.
I designed this labor intensive (84 person hours/week of censusing) protocol for a life history evolution experiment testing predictions of the Grandmother Hypothesis, but the resulting data also allow us to address issues in basic rotifer biology which could never before be answered. My students have taken on many of these as research projects, such as:
1. Multivariate analyses teasing apart the effects of elapsed time, elapsed generations, and multigenerational birth order effects on the probability of sexual vs. parthenogenic reproduction.
2. The effect of cyst (resting egg) size on the survival and reproduction of different generations of decedents of that cyst.
3. A variety of questions in incest avoidance and kin recognition.
4. Heritability analyses.
(This page will be expanded and expounded upon as time allows.)
Rotifer Research