Haidi Badawi
Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science
The University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus
VIC, 3010, Australia
Email: h.badawi@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Degree
PhD
Thesis title
Identification and classification of the Australian subterranean termite Coptotermes sp. (Isoptera: Rhinotermidae) via emerging DNA fingerprint technology
Supervisors
Dr Berhan Ahmed
Dr Gerd Bossinger
Dr John Richard French
Dr Michael Schwarz
Project outline
Subterranean termites of the genus Coptotermes are the most destructive termites in Australia. Studies on subterranean termite biology and ecology are hampered by the termites crypto-biotic lifestyle and our inability to unambiguously identify species. Therefore, there is need to explore and apply advanced methods for better classification.
Mitochondrial DNA fingerprint-based identification is well established and allows molecular variation analysis, comprehensive specimen sampling, explicit morphological species identification, and phylogenetic analysis.
This technique will be used to compare a number of colonies of the same or different Australian Coptotermes species and compare phylogenetics with traditional morphological methods as a complementary classification system for the Coptotermes genus. (HB, Feb. 2007)
Link to Postgraduate index page