My name is Liz Roux, and I am a rising senior conducting field research for my thesis under supervisor Gonzalo Giribet with Harvard's department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. I am conducting this field research at various sites around the Florida peninsula from June 2018 to July 2018 with the generous funds of the Harvard College Research Program (HCRP) and Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology Grants-In-Aid of Undergraduate Research.
I am collecting Bdelloura candida, the ectocommensal planarians found on horseshoe crabs, to study the phylogeographic differentiation and the genetic consequences of symbiotic relationships. I hope to elucidate the biogeographical barrier demonstrates by the divergent haplotypes between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico populations of B. candida. I'm excited to see what this research reveals not only for Bdelloura but also for a variety of symbiotic relationships in which the phylogeography of the symbiont may mirror that of its host.
So far this research experience has enriched my passion for biology and has provided insights to the challenges and rewards of working in the field. It is extremely helpful (and fun!) to collaborate with local marine biology experts throughout Florida and to embrace the camaraderie of fellow academics. I also feel an inherent joy and sense of purpose of seeing a research project through from its start, collecting samples in the field, to its finish, my senior thesis. Looking to the future, I plan to pursue a career in medicine with the integral perspective of organismic and evolutionary biology, regarding humans as a single species functioning among a diversity of organisms in a dynamic environment, and tackling human health in relation to a larger biological realm.