GEP Events

Puerto Rico Regional Node January 2022 New Member Training

New Member Training will help faculty in Puerto Rico integrate GEP curriculum materials into existing courses and engage their students in scientific research through Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) centered in genomics.
  • WHO: Especially welcome faculty from Community Colleges, MSIs, & PUIs teaching courses in genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, molecular biology, evolution, or introductory biology
  • WHAT: Those who complete the training become members of our partnership and thus are expected to implement GEP materials in one of their classes
  • WHERE: Virtual via Zoom
  • WHEN: January 10 – 21, 2022 | 3 – 4:30p (CT)

Trainees will meet for ~1.5 hours each weekday during the two-week period.

  • HOW: Synchronous

Please note that we strongly encourage trainees to complete the Understanding Eukaryotic Genes modules prior to attending the training. These modules will allow trainees to start to learn the tools GEP uses for gene annotation. An overview and timeline for implementing these modules is available on CourseSource.

If you’d like to be informed of future training opportunities, please let us know via the Contact form.

GEP Research Seminar Series

Dr. Arun Sethuraman, a professor at San Diego State University, is an evolutionary computational biologist who develops new statistical methods to study how genomes evolve in structured populations during divergence and speciation in response to natural selection and demography. Applications of his work include conservation, deciphering human evolutionary history, agriculture, and biological control. Dr. Sethuraman will be presenting a research talk to GEP Members titled “Heritability of body size, the evolution of parthenogenesis, and a new genome sequence for the parasitoid wasp Dinocampus coccinellae.”

  • SUMMARY: Dinocampus coccinellae is a species of parthenogenetic parasitoid wasp that oviposits into 50+ species of Coccinellid lady beetle hosts. Here we present the first high-quality genome of D. coccinellae using a combination of short- and long-read sequencing technologies, followed by assembly and scaffolding of chromosomal segments using Chicago+HiC technologies. We also present a first-pass ab initio and a reference-based genome annotation. We report on the distribution of body size morphometrics of D. coccinellae across 7 Coccinellid host species, estimates of heritability of body size morphometrics, and comparative phylogenomic placement of D. coccinellae amongst Hymenopterans. Our studies reveal positive correlates of body size morphometrics of arrhenotokous wasps, two independent origins of arrhenotoky and eusociality among Hymenopterans, and weak heritability of most body size morphometric traits, indicating strong evidence for phenotypic plasticity in response to host body size among D. coccinellae.
  • WHO: All GEP Members are welcome! A recording will be available for members that are unable to attend.
  • WHERE: Virtual via Zoom
  • WHEN: Friday, March 11, 2022  |  1 – 2p (CT)
  • HOW: Join the Trello card if you plan to attend.
Announcement for the March 2022 GEP Research Seminar Series Dr. Arun Sethuraman from San Diego State University will provide a talk titled “Heritability of body size, the evolution of parthenogenesis, and a new genome sequence for the parasitoid wasp Dinocampus coccinellae” on March 11 at 1-2p (CT). A recording will be available for members that are unable to attend.