The Bug Lab
March, 2025
by Victoria Brown-Kennerly, class of spring 2024
The Bug Lab at EarthWays
The Missouri Botanical Garden's EarthWays Center, in collaboration with the Butterfly House and Webster University, held a series of citizen science bug collecting events. During these events, we photographed the collected specimens to document them in a national database as part the Citizen DNA Barcode Network, a nationwide biodiversity study. Last week, citizen scientists — including our very own Carl Davis — joined The Bug Lab at EarthWays to get immersed in the molecular biology of DNA Barcoding, which uses genetics to identify field specimens of plants and animals, including bugs. Newly certified MMN Victoria Brown-Kennerly served as the science adviser and interpreter for the event.
Each participant “adopted” an insect ... and then promptly, lovingly ground it into bits and extracted its DNA. With their adopted bug's DNA, they used state-of-the-art lab technology to make billions of copies of their bug's DNA “barcode,” which is a region of the genome that precisely identifies specimens down to the species level. We then visualized their bug's DNA by pulling it through a gel with electricity. The barcodes appeared as glowing green bands in the gel. The DNA was then sequenced and analyzed using a bioinformatics program online, which will happen at the next citizen science virtual event.
Step 1. Specimens collected at Lower Meramec County Park. Bug collections occurred at various areas including Bellefontaine Cemetery & Arboretum, Tower Grove Park, and Faust Park.
Step 2. Adopted bugs were visualized under the microscope (beautiful!) and photo-documented in the Citizen DNA Barcode Network database.
Step 3. Victoria demonstrates micropipeting to work with the bug's DNA.
Step 4. Carl loads the gel with his adopted bug's DNA barcode.
Step 5. Barcode DNAs glowing green in the gel!