Phylogeny of Leech Gut Contents
Methods:
- isolate gut contents from leeches preserved in ethanol or collected live
- extract whole DNA
- amplify 18S rDNA from each
- sequence amplificaiton products
- compare sequenced product with leech to confirm that product is not of leech origin
- align sequences in a large metazoan phylogenetic data set
- determine through phylogeny reconstruction, the placement of leech-gut unknowns
Suspicions / determinations being tested:
- that the north american medicinal leech Macrobdella decora is not exclusively a vertebrate-blood feeder but actually feeds on inverts when blood is not available
- no one knows what Placobdella montifera feeds on, always found in unionid shells but seems to have blood
Results