Tree of Life

Welcome

Cnidaria AToL (CnidTol) is a five-year, collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation under the "Assembling the Tree of Life" program. The overall goal of CnidToL is to significantly enhance our understanding of evolution in the Phylum Cnidaria. The CnidToL project will use an integrative, multi-level approach to investigating cnidarian evolution. The CnidToL team is comprised of PIs, co-PIs and contractors from eleven laboratories at nine institutions and also includes multiple international and U.S. collaborators within the cnidarian scientific community. Through a collaborative effort, we will generate extensive molecular and morphological datasets that will be used to reconstruct phylogenetic hypothesis of cnidarian relationships. Molecular data will include mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and 16S ribosomal DNA plus nuclear 28S ribosomal DNA; we anticipate a total of 10+ molecular markers. One aspect of morphology that will be examined in detail is the diversity of nematocysts (stinging cells); in turn the utility of these anatomical data for phylogenetic analyses will be evaluated. In addition, we will develop laboratory culture conditions for several different cnidarian species representing a broad phylogenetic sampling in an effort to develop new model organisms amenable for future in-depth developmental, life-history, and morphological studies. (See the CnidToL homepage)

Training and outreach are important components of the CnidToL project. An online database will include a catalogue of species, bibliography of literature in which they were described, inventory of type specimens, distribution maps, and images (see cnidarian.info). In addition, all of the molecular and morphological datasets generated from this project will be included in the CnidToL database. Undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral training and outreach to K-12 educators will also be a prominent component to this project.

Contact

If you are interested in more information or want to discuss potential collaborations and/or contributions to the project, please contact the most relevant point-person listed below. A general description of the framework for collaborations on medusozoans follows the list of cnidarian personnel.

Actiniarians and nematocysts: Meg Daly, daly.66@osu.edu

Culturing new model organisms: Neil Blackstone, neilb@niu.edu

Data analyses: Dan Janies, janies-1@medctr.osu.edu

Database development: Daphne Fautin, fautin@ku.edu

Hydra: Daniel Mart’nez, dmartinez@pomona.edu

Hydrozoans: Paulyn Cartwright, pcart@ku.edu

Hexacorals: Sandra Romano, sromano@uvi.edu

Medusozoans: Allen Collins, CollinsA@si.edu

Molecular marker development: Cliff Cunningham, cliff@duke.edu; Bernie Ball, bernie.ball@duke.edu

Octocorals:

Scyphozoans: Mike Dawson, mdawson@ucmerced.edu