This award provides funds for the establishment of a shared instrument facility for studies of the systematics of vertebrate and invertebrate animals. The equipment permits automated analyses of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA content, chromosome structure, anatomical variation, and of electrophoretic variation in individual proteins. The equipment to be purchased consists of a flow cytometer/cell sorter, digital imaging system for computer enhanced karyotype analysis, and an image analysis system for morphometric analysis. Studies of organismal variation play a crucial role in our understanding of the evolutionary relationships of organisms and of the role of genetic and developmental variation in the adaptation of organisms to their environment and in their ability to compete with each other. By their nature, such studies demand statistically meaningful data obtained by repetitive and often tedious analysis of many individuals. The development of advanced imaging systems and other equipment capable of measuring variation at the organismal, cellular and subcellular level has substantially improved the ease and accuracy of measurement of variation between individuals, and between closely related species.
