A student-faculty duo at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste Marie have produced the university's first fully grown, in-house genome of a fresh water sponge.
The new data will help scientists better develop strategies to fight off invasive species that can be harmful to the Great Lakes and fresh water ecosystems around the world.
Undergraduate Tailey McCloskey accomplished the task in just two months.
McCloskey's faculty advisor, biology professor Stephen Kolomyjec, said the process used to take much longer and shows just how far the science has progressed.
"The advancement and simplicity of the current technological platforms for DNA sequencing have just made it much more achievable and obtainable at the undergraduate level," he explained.
Kolomyjec said nobody has particularly looked deep into the questions involved with sponge relationships.
"I know a few places in Europe where they've had problems with fresh water sponges being introduced from one part of Europe into another and then they start overgrowing everything else," he said.
Kolomyjec added there are no invasive sponge species right now in the U.S. but hopes the continued research will help identify relationships of sponge species quickly.
He said now that they've sequenced this sponge, the biology department hopes to start working on other species of sponge at the university.
