William Stephenson

• Bsc (Hons) Biology ( Ecology & Environmental Ecology)
• Developing microsatellite primers for two Tilia species in order to assess ascertainment bias

Tilia are an important group of ancient northern hemisphere trees important for biodiversity and goods such as honey, tea and carvings. Through genotyping populations of Tilia it is possible to track their evolutionary history and understand how they and associated species colonised Europe. Specifically, this project aimed to develop microsatellite primers for diversity assessment, in order to see if a primer developed in one species of Tilia could be used as an effective diversity indicator for another similar species (ascertainment bias). It was found that primers developed from Tilia cordata showed a similar level of diversity as those that were developed from Tilia platyphyllos and vice versa. This would suggest that Tilia primers can be used across species. Consequently this helps validate previous studies on Tilia and could help inform future research projects that are constrained by the expense and time consuming nature of producing species specific primers.

Funding source: Genetics Society

Supervisor: Dr Kirsten Wolff