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Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
(413) 585-3750
Education:
Ph.D. Candidate, Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 2005-present
Research Interests:
I’m interested in population genetics, genome evolution, morphology and taxonomy of lobose testate amoebae (Arcellinida).
My research currently focuses on the inheritance of protein coding genes in Arcella hemisphaerica. We are exploring the genomic processes behind a wide variety of haplotypes found in both the population and individual level. I plan to expand this work to other closely related species and genera, looking simultaneously at genome evolution, and to test hypothesis of inheritance in natural populations.
Early this year, we have published a review on the variability of genomes in microbial eukaryotes, which is a good exemplary paper where we begin to understand the dimension of genome evolution in these organisms:
Parfrey LW, Lahr DJG, Katz LA. 2008. The dynamic nature of eukaryotic genomes. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 25(4):787-794. (link)
My previous work is on morphology and taxonomy of several genera of testate amoebae (Arcella, Difflugia, Lesquereusia and Centropyxis) where I have tried to expose some fundamental differences and difficulties when establishing taxonomical identity in microbial eukaryotes, especially related to comparisons between traditional description techniques and modern microscopy and molecular work. These are the papers published so far:
Daniel J. G. LAHR and Sônia G. B. C. Lopes. 2006. Morphology, biometry, ecology and biogeography of five species of Difflugia Leclerc, 1815 (Arcellinida: Difflugiidae), from Tiete River, Brazil Acta Protozoologica 45(1):77-90 (link)
Daniel J. G. LAHR and Sônia G. B. C Lopes. 2007. Ultra-structure and Biometry of Three Lobose Testate Amoebae of the Family Lesquereusiidae (Tubulinea: Arcellinida) Based on Specimens from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Acta Protozoologica 46(4):339 - 348 (link)
Daniel J. G. LAHR, Philip J. Bergmann, Sonia G. B. C. Lopes. 2008. The Taxonomic Identity in Microbial Eukaryotes: a Practical Approach Using the Testate Amoeba Centropyxis to Resolve Conflicts Between Old and New Taxonomic Descriptions. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology. Accepted
