Questions
Research at the interface of evolution, informatics, and ecology
Introduction
This is a tale of two small flowers. Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabidopsis lyrata ssp. petraea are small, flowering plants from the same genus. In many respects they're hard to tell apart - appearence, flowering times, location... like many, many other plant and fungal species across the world which need rapid, accurate identification to fight wildlife crime, discover new drugs and fight crop diseases.
It's not always easy to work out which species a plant belongs to just by looking at it. In fact few people could correctly identify all the species in their own gardens!
Being able to quickly identify species is critical for scientific research, conservation of biodiversity and fighting wildlife crime, for example. By sequencing an individuals genome (i.e., reading their DNA sequence) it's possible to determine which species it belongs.
Until now sequencing whole genomes has been slow, expensive and needed a laboratory with lots of specialised equipment.
In this film a team of scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew travelled to Snowdonia National Park to try and sequence plant genomes in a tent. They took a MinION DNA sequencer which fits in a pocket and is made by UK-based Oxford Nanopore Technologies. To our knowledge this was the first time genomic sequencing of higher eukaryotes has been performed in the field.
Can the team, fighting against the weather, use minimal equipment and this exciting new technology to identify plants from their DNA alone?
