CSULB Biology Student Awarded Best Poster

Southern California Academy of Sciences Meeting
Pepperdine University
May 12, 2006

Kurt Karageorge, one of our Master's students, was recognized and awarded ($200) for the Best Poster in the area of Molecular Biology and Physiology at the Southern California Academy of Sciences meeting that took place on May 12th at Pepperdine University. There were many student posters there from all over the LA Basin, and beyond. Another nice "feather" in the cap of our Master's program here at Long Beach!

MICROSATELLITE DNA ASSESSMENT OF MULTIPLE PATERNITY IN THE VIVPAROUS ROCKFISH SEBASTES MELANOPS

Kurt W. Karageorge. Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840.

Three polymorphic microsatellite loci are being optimized and employed in a natural population of the viviparous Pacific rockfish Sebastes melanops to determine if multiple paternity occurs in brooded females, and to quantify the incidence of female mating behaviors. Brooded females of S. melanops (n=14) were collected from nearshore reefs off Oregon to genotype mothers and samples of their brooded offspring (zygotes, embryos or larvae). DNA was extracted from three females and their progeny (n=90 per female), amplified by PCR, and assayed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis using a Li-COR DNA sequencing system. A one-sire null hypothesis (female monogamy and full-sibling relationships among brooded progeny) is being tested by conducting paternal allele counts and examining Mendelian segregation patterns in observed versus expected genotypic offspring ratios for the one-sire model. Early results of genotyped progeny from the first fully assayed female revealed four paternal alleles at one tetranucleotide- repeat locus, and three paternal alleles at a pentanucleotide-repeat locus; both loci revealing evidence of at least two fathers and polyandry in S. melanops. Brooded females of brown rockfish, S. auriculatus, from Washington and rosy rockfish, S. rosaceus, starry rockfish, S. constellatus, and greenspotted rockfish, S. chlorosticus from southern California have also been collected for future tests of multiple paternity across the species-rich genus Sebastes.