Paulyn Cartwright receives NSF DEB grant

Paulyn Cartwright, professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, has received approval for a grant funded through the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology and KU will receive $494,890.
It is titled “Phylogeny of Cnidaria - Convergent Evolution of Eyes, Gene Expression, and Cell Types” with Todd Oakley (Lead PI, UC Santa Barbara) and MariaPia Miglietta (Texas A&M University). The group is reconstructing a detailed phylogenomic tree of Medusozoa in order to trace the evolutionary history of jellyfish eyes and using comparative transcriptomes and single cell RNA sequencing to determine similarities and differences in genetic pathways of convergent eyes.
Photo accompanying this story is a hydromedusae called Polyorchis pencillatus whose common name is red-eyed jellyfish. The red dots at base of the tentacles are eye spots called ocelli that contain light sensing cells. Photo credit goes to Anna Klompen.