Led by Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun, the Kartzinel Lab published a paper describes our efforts to repurpose CRISPR technology in ways that might help overcome persistent drawbacks to PCR and other targeted enrichment strategies in molecular ecology. This post provides a summary of the strategy we used and the lessons we learned in publishing A CRISPR-based strategy for targeted sequencing in biodiversity science at Molecular Ecology Resources. The article was originally posted as a BioRxiv preprint.

An exciting paper from the lab on lizard behavior, let by (former) undergraduate all-star Thomas Patti, has been published in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. The "Bite and Seek" paper focuses on the exploratory behaviors and bite force of the Podarcis lizard colony that we had on campus. Thomas and the team tested an extensive series of hypotheses about the relationship between behaviors observed in populations of this non-native lizard species and the recency of population establishment. All else equal, propensity for exploration might be expected to facilitate the establishment of new populations -- lizards have to explore at least a little to get somewhere new -- and thus recently founded populations should comprise groups of explorers. Not so in nature, Thomas reports, and this requires us to take a more nuanced view of behavioral 'syndromes' as sets of traits and behaviors that may be associated with invasion potential and success in non-native species. Great work Thomas, Colin, Andy, and Caroline!