RAPID: Funding the Drosophila Species Stock Center at Cornell University

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

The genus Drosophila has served as a model system in biology for over 100 years. Many advances in neurobiology, medicine, genetics, genome organization and evolution, and the mechanisms of development are the result of basic research on this group of flies. The Drosophila Species Stock Center (DSSC), recently relocated to Cornell University, is a national repository for a diverse collection of over 1400 living stocks from approximately 250 species of Drosophila and related genera. The DSSC has maintained these cultures since the 1940s and distributes to researchers working in a variety of biological fields to facilitate research aimed at studying the underlying principles and mechanisms of life. DSSC staff provides technical expertise in the areas of husbandry, natural history, systematics, evolution, and ecology of Drosophila. Training for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scholars will be facilitated through independent research apprenticeships and via an annual workshop on Drosophila Species Identification and Culture. The DSSC maintains over 30 Drosophila species that have had their whole genomes sequenced, a number that is increasing each year. This aspect of the collection further adds to its value and utility as a resource for comparative research for investigating the relationships between phenotypic change, genome evolution, species divergence, and to address fundamental questions from molecular mechanisms to morphological evolution. Resources of the DSSC are also directly useful in applied sciences and other applications, for example, in agriculture and pest control, as a resource of comparative data for Drosophila pest species that impact the US and global economies. This project will also increase access to information resources through the development of a new, user-friendly web site (http://blogs.cornell.edu/drosophila/). The revised web site will contain species pages for all taxa currently in culture, including information on stocks available and rearing requirements, and phylogenetic relationships. Species pages will be illustrated with photos and line drawings of morphological structures used for species identification. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.