Jacob Delano, Utah Valley University
The central research question & purpose is to investigate multiple species of mayflies in order to better understand the evolution of opsin genes and determine when gene duplication events occurred. Background Introduction: Mayflies are a unique insect in many respects, for example, they are among the first insects to evolve flight, making the study of mayflies very important for understanding how flight first evolved. They are also the only lineage to molt again after being capable of flight. Male mayflies have greatly enlarged eyes, and little is know about opsin copies for the order. Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), the sister group to mayflies, have 11-30 copies. Therefore, it is likely that mayflies have acquired many opsin genes through gene duplication events as well. Research Methodology: Transcriptome data is the sum of all messenger RNA molecules expressed from the genes of an organism at a particular time in the life cycle of the organism. We have generated transcriptomes for multiple species (males, females, nymphs, and adults) from eight families of mayfly including: Heptageniidae, Oligoneuriidae, Ephemeridae, Ephemerellidae, Caenidae, Isonychiidae, Ameletidae, and Leptophlebiidae. Transcriptome data is generated by storing mayflies in RNA immediately after capture, extracting RNA, sending samples off for sequencing, & finally mining opsin genes through bioinformatic pipeline. A bioinformatic pipeline will enable 1) mining out the opsin genes, 2) classifying the different copies and 3) investigating the evolutionary history of those copies. Tissue will come from mayflies reared in a stream tank. Being able to rear mayflies enables the lab to sample mayflies at different life stages and generate more transcriptomes. Attempting to create transcriptomes at different life stages has not yet been attempted for mayflies, expectations are to find different genes being expressed at different levels during development. The data generated should yield a better understanding of opsin gene evolution. Conclusion: Multiple transcriptomes have been generated and the lab anticipates generating more. Generating and analyzing these transcriptomes will determine exactly how many copies of opsin genes each of the taxa have. The lab is being trained to use bioinformatic pipelines to mine transcriptomes, and determine opsin gene evolution. The tank is currently built and optimal mayfly rearing techniques are being fine tuned such as; determining ideal water temperature, egg catching techniques, finding an ideal food source, & inducing parthenogenesis in the mayfly species Baetidae.