 Dr.
Feng Sheng Hu
fshu@life.uiuc.edu
I am a broadly trained ecologist
working at the interfaces of
biological, geological and
climatological sciences. I received
my Ph. D. in 1994 from the
University of Washington. The
overall objective of my research is
to understand patterns and
mechanisms of long-term ecosystem
dynamics under changing climatic
conditions.
To achieve this objective, I use
"the natural experiments of the
past" that are archived in
geological deposits. These deposits
offer a long-term holistic
perspective into past environmental
conditions, some of which do not
exist today but may be analogs of
different climatic conditions in the
future.
In pursuing my research
interests, I have integrated
traditional paleoecological
techniques (e.g., pollen analysis)
and state-of-the-art analytical
tools (e.g., biomarker,
stable-isotope, and chloroplast-DNA
techniques).
Current research projects in my
laboratory apply this
integrative approach to the study of
environmental dynamics at various
spatial and temporal scales. These
projects focus on (1) abrupt
climatic change and effect on
forests/grasslands/peatlands, (2)
geomorphic control over vegetation
patterns and biogeochemical
processes of tundra ecosystems, (3)
molecular genetics of
boreal-forest-biome development, and
(4) climate-fire-vegetation
interaction.
Research sites include arctic,
boreal, and temperate ecosystems in
Alaska, Michigan, Minnesota,
Washington, and Russia. |
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 Professor Hugh Robertson
Professor of Cell & Structural Biology
Professor of Entomology
B.S., University of Witwatersrand, South Africa (Zoology and Biochemistry)
Ph.D., University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (Zoology)
The Robertson Lab
My lab currently has four major research areas: molecular evolution of insect transposons, the molecular basis of insect olfaction, molecular evolution of nematode chemoreceptor genes, and comparative insect genomics. Past research projects have included Wolbachia bacteria that cause cytoplasmic incompatibility in insects, insect molecular phylogenies, ancient DNA from amber fossil insects, mating behavior of Drosophila fruit flies, and behavioral ecology of damselflies.
Transposons are mobile pieces of DNA, common to all organisms, that are also known as transposable elements or jumping genes. They are interesting to biologists for several reasons, including their flouting of Mendel's rules of inheritance and their enormous utility as genetic tools. They flout Mendel's rules by making copies of themselves throughout the genome of their host organism, thereby ensuring their rapid spread through a species. Our focus is on the mariner family of transposons found in insects and other animal genomes, and more recently in plants. Mariners are small (±1300bp) DNA-mediated or Class II transposons and appear to be capable of functioning in any host environment. They are therefore excellent universal genetic tools, for functions such as transformation, gene tagging, and gene disruption or mutation. Most recently we are working on copies of Tigger and pogo transposons in the human genome that have evolved into functional genes
Olfaction is a primary sense of insects, for example, being involved in mate recognition in most species, host plant and animal location in phytophagous and blood-feeding insects, and social communication in termites, ants, and honey bees. A family of transmembrane chemoreceptor proteins like those found in vertebrates and nematodes was recently found in the Drosophila genome sequences. We have found similar receptors in mosquito, moth, and honey bee antennae, and are studying their expression, ligand specificity, and evolution. We and others have also found many small secreted odorant binding proteins in insects, and are studying their role in the specificity of insect olfaction.
The Caenorhabditis elegans nematode genome project has revealed the presence of extremely large gene families encoding diverse chemoreceptors. I have undertaken studies of their molecular evolution, including the interesting evolution of their introns and their genomic locations.
My colleague Gene Robinson has undertaken a largescale EST project on a honey bee brain cDNA library. I have assisted with detailed analysis of ESTs encoding proteins with best matches to non-insect genes, most interestingly more than 100 genes that appear to be missing from the Drosophila genome. Together with our own and other EST projects on moths, flies, beetles and other insects, and impending genomic projects on these groups, I am beginning work in comparative insect genomics.
We have long had a major program studying the molecular evolution of DNA transposons in insect and other animal genomes, and this continues with work on genes derived from DNA transposons in mammalian genomes. We are also undertaking molecular evolutionary analyses of the remarkably large families of candidate chemoreceptors that constitute 5% of the Caenorhabditis nematode genomes.
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