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MARIA ZACHARIAS: What's it like to transition from the military
to the world of scientific research? Amy Battocletti is a
veteran who's won a prestigious NSF graduate research
fellowship. I'm Maria Zacharias with the National Science
Foundation. When I saw that Amy was presenting her research
here, I wanted to grab her for a chat to talk about her time in
the Navy and her research on the impact of genetic variation
within plant species. Hey, Amy.
AMY BATTOCLETTI: Hi.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: I know you've been at this for a while with
the poster session, but I was thinking it would be great to
talk a little more about the research you're doing. I know a
nice little spot to go. Wanna come?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: Yeah, that sounds great.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: All right, let's go. So, what was your
service like? What was job when you were in the service?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: I was an aerographer's mate, which is a
weather forecaster that also forecasts oceanographic
conditions. So, we're really the environmental support personnel
for the Navy, so--
MARIA ZACHARIAS: Okay, so like heights of the waves? And that
kind of thing?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: Yep, exactly. Yeah.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: So were you usually right?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: We hope so. Yeah, it's a lot more difficult
than it would seem. You know, a lot of it is mathematical
modeling, so just based on what we know, trying to forecast
based on the present conditions what will happen in the future.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: So when you made your transition from
military to academe, what was that like?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: I, luckily, I had a science job when I was in
the military, so transitioning to looking at, you know, a
biology class, wasn't too much of a transition for me. So, I
pretty much just went from one science right into the other.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: So, look at this. And this looks really fun.
You're out there on the salt marsh vacuuming up insects. So
what is that like?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: We're actually in the salt marsh collecting
plant hoppers.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: So a plant hopper is some kind of insect?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: Yes.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: Okay.
AMY BATTOCLETTI: There's a really large engine that you
wear on your back and it acts as a huge vacuum cleaner. So we
suck in the insects and we usually have a net here that's
clipped in. And so the insects get trapped in the net, so we
quickly, you know, turn the vacuum up, tie the net up, and
we put the insects into a jar with ethanol vapors and that
euthanizes them. So this is in New Jersey. So it's right near
Atlantic City, so we can usually see Atlantic City from the site.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: So do you go and hit the casino afterwards
or anything?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: No. I think we would be getting funny looks. We
would smell like salt marsh, at that point.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: And then what do you do at the lab?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: So we go through, under the dissecting
microscope, with tweezers and we count out how many we find, so
that we can estimate the census density and then we also take
out a large number for DNA extraction. And, that's how
we're getting our estimates of genetic variation.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: So you're able to see differences in them,
depending on which part of the population they are?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: What we're hypothesizing is that there's a
larger amount of genetic drift along the edges, because this--
a decrease in census density is actually translating into an
impact on the amount of genetic variation. If you have a smaller
population size, there's much more of a chance that a certain
variation on that gene will become the only variation
present in the population. So, if that's the only copy
of that gene, then that's identical between all of us.
And so the genetic variation is lost at that point.
want is biodiversity.
AMY BATTOCLETTI: Yes.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: And we want a whole range of insects so that
they will be different from each other?
AMY BATTOCLETTI: The more variants on a gene that you have
in a population, then those variants will have different
strengths and weaknesses, and so, you know, individuals are
all different at that point. And it's great to have a variety of
individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. So if
there was a disturbance, like, you know, a hurricane hits the
salt marsh, for example, maybe all of those individuals have a
weakness. And they can't handle all of that salt water coming in
and flooding their area for a long period of time, whereas if
there was a greater amount of genetic variation, then maybe
some of those individuals would be better able to handle that.
And so, even though a large part of the population may be wiped
out, other individuals would survive and be able to reproduce
and contribute to the next generation.
MARIA ZACHARIAS: I really enjoyed our discussion and I'm
glad you had a few minutes to just chat about your work, and I
wish you well with your PhD and all of the things you're working
on right now.
much.
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