Animal Facility of the Hejnol Group
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Animal facility – the Hejnol group
The Hejnol group cultures a broad range of animal taxa which are used for studying the evolution and development of animal diversity by using morphological and molecular methods.
Increasing the number of research organisms and the interpretation of the data on the basis of a resolved phylogeny provides a powerful toolkit for understanding evolution. -Andreas Hejnol
In the animal facility there are two large incubators, one smaller algae incubator at 16°C and one 500 litre seawater aquarium system. The room is kept at a continuous 22°C and there is a 14/10 light/dark cycle for the room, all incubators and the aquarium. The maintenance of the room, equipment and organisms is taken care of by fulltime animal technician.
Animals we culture:
| Clade | Species | Food | Conditions | Fresh/Sea (F/S) Water | Publications from the lab |
| Acoela | Convolutriloba macropyga | Artemia & Photons | 25°C Aquarium | SW | |
| Isodiametra pulchra | Nitzschia | 20°C Incubator | SW | Martin-Duran et al. 2018, Nature; Andrikou et al 2019, PLoS Biol | |
| Hofstenia miamia | Artemia, Brachionus | 20°C Incubator | SW | ||
| Annelida | Dimorphilus cf. gyrociliatus | Fish food | 20°C Incubator | SW | Kerbl et al. 2016, EvoDevo |
| Nemertea | Lineus ruber | Platynereis, Mytilus | 10°C Incubator | SW | Martin-Duran et al. 2018, Nature; Martin-Duran et al. 2015, EvoDevo |
| Lineus longissimus | Platynereis | 10°C Incubator | SW | Thiel et al 2019, Front Zool | |
| Gastrotricha | Lepidodermella squamata | Wheat grains and milk powder | Room Temperature | FW | Fromm et al 2019, Noncoding RNA |
| Platyhelminthes | Macrostomum lignano | Nitzschia | 20°C Incubator | SW | |
| Stenostomum leucops | Oat flakes | 20°C Incubator | SW | ||
| Gnathifera | Epiphanes senta | Rhinomonas sp. Cryptomonas, Chlamydomonas | 20°C Incubator with light | FW | Martin-Duran et al. 2018, Nature; Gąsiorowski et al 2019, Front Zool |
| Adinata vaga | E. coli | Room Temperature | FW | Flot et al 2013, Nature | |
| Nematoda | Pontonema vulgare | Clotted fish blood | 10°C Incubator | SW | |
| Tardigrada | Hypsibius exemplaris | Chlorococcum | 20°C Incubator | FW | |
| Ctenophora | Mnemiopsis leidyi | Copepods | transferred to Burkhard lab | SW | Sebe-Pedros et al 2018, Nature Ecol Evol; De Mendoza et al 2019, Nature Ecol Evol |
In addition to the continuous cultures we also collect and keep for shorter periods species of Priapulida (Priapulus caudatus), Brachiopoda (Novocrania anomala), Phoronida (Phoronopsis harmeri) and Nemertodermatida (Meara stichopi).