Taylor Receives NSF Grant To Study Animal Hybridization

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- There's a new invader in Lake Erie, though you wouldn't know it to look at it.

It's a hybridized water flea, a result of an invader European species mating with the native species and, according to Derek Taylor, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences at the University at Buffalo, it may be replacing the native water-flea species in Lake Erie.

"The problem is, the European water flea doesn't have any identifying characteristics," Taylor explained, "so, if it got carried over by a ship from France, say, it's not going to be wearing a beret and mustache. It looks just like the native species."

Studying the outcomes of animal hybridization -- whether in Lake Erie or in the farthest reaches of the Arctic -- is Taylor's life work and it forms part of the basis of the recent $478,000 Faculty Early Career Development Grant he recently received from the National Science Foundation. The awards recognize young faculty members who have demonstrated outstanding potential as science and engineering investigators and educators.

"We need to know how to make these distinctions because the hybrids can take over rapidly," said Taylor. "And because they are harder to detect, the hybrids can be more insidious, so we have to use genetic markers to see their berets and mustaches."

These markers, which Taylor searches for in organisms that live in the waters of the Great Lakes and Arctic ponds, help scientists determine the outcome of hybridization.

"By combining genetic markers with lake sediment analysis, we can reconstruct the past in a way that wasn't possible before we had this technology," said Taylor.

Water-flea embryos that are entombed in the sediment are identified through the use of genetic analysis and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies genetic information. These mud cores contain in their layers hundreds of years of live embryos of organisms that provide an important insight into how their genes have changed over time.

According to Taylor, an evolutionary biologist, hybridization is of particular interest because it can lead to the transfer of adaptations from one species to another or even to the formation of a new species. In addition, many agriculturally important species and pests are hybrids. For example, Africanized honey bees, the so-called killer bees, are hybrids.

This July, when Taylor visits the Arctic, he will search for a type of hybrid that seems to be particularly common in extreme environments. These polar superstars, called polyploids, have multiple chromosome sets, as opposed to the usual diploid hybrids, which only have one set from each parent.

The purpose of his work in the polar regions is to find possible answers to the question of why polyploid hybrids are so successful in extreme environments and to one of the most basic questions of evolution: Where did everything come from?

"Every culture has its creation myth, which is how we try to describe how the species formed," said Taylor. He illustrates his lectures with the Arctic story of Sedna, the Inuit goddess whose fingers, it is believed, froze in icy waters and then fell off, each one spawning a brand new species.

Taylor, who looks at that question from the scientific perspective, has chosen the freshwater ponds and lakes of this part of the world -- among the most threatened habitats on the planet -- to study because of its relative youth and because it is a showcase for speciation.

"In the Arctic, the signature of speciation is clearest," said Taylor.

Unfortunately, this signature and the polar freshwater habitats in which they are found also are disappearing quickly because of global climate change and the deterioration of the ozone hole.

This summer, Taylor will lead an expedition with graduate students to northwestern Alaska, a pilot for next year's course that will be geared toward undergraduates, and which will take students to an area called Resolute, just south of the North Pole.

Supported by the education component of the NSF Career Award, the course will be the only High Arctic (i.e. literally, the top of the world) course in North America that uses molecular tools. The two-week course will expose students to the ecology of a region that few humans have ever observed. Students will be able to apply for it during the 2000-2001 academic year.