Current Lab Reseach

	CURRENT LAB RESEARCH

Reseach area

Current Projects

Suborder Criconematina	Crico barcode tree	Criconematina are a major group of plant-parasitic nematodes found in soils from the tropics to the arctic. Their high endemicity, poor dispersal capabilities, and apparent lack of specialized survival stages make them an excellent subject for biogeographic analysis. They are potential indicators for soil disturbance
An ongoing set of studies attempting to clarify the species boundaries in the Suborder Criconematina	Crico barcode tree
More information....	Discus / Rustica
More information....	Bakernema / Xenocriconemella l	Possible nematode indicators of ancient environments
Biodiversity	Discocriconemella inaratus- an endemic Criconematid nematode of native tallgrass prairies	The 18 recorded species of Criconematidae associated with remnant prairies and woodlands in Iowa often have overlapping distributions and indistinct species boundaries. This study considers the taxonomic status and species boundaries of D. inaratus based on morphological and molecular characters.
	Costa Rica diversity project More information....	By including nematode communities above the mineral soil, our study of nematode diversity in tropical rainforests of Costa Rica demonstrates that a high level of nematode diversity exists in the humid tropics.
	Connecting MOTU's with morphologically described taxa	Generating a molecular profile of an individual nematode (molecular operational taxonomic unit) is not difficult. Connecting that profile with a known living specimen is much more difficult
Molecular diagnostics	CAPS project-	Our laborotory is a designated nematode diagnostic labortory for the national Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey program l
More information....	Nacobbus project	This study attempts to clarify the taxonomic status and systematic relationships among North America isolates of the false root-knot nematode, Nacobbus aberrans.

RECENT POSTERS and PUBLICATIONS


		Title	date
Posters		Select Images of Nematodes from Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Light and Scanning Electron Microscopy	-March 2014
		Nematodes of the George Washington Memorial Parkway	-July 2013
		Exploring Tallgrass Prairie Diversity in the Nematode Family Criconematidae	-July 2013
		The 2013 Nematode Species Count from Great Smoky Mountains National Park	- March 2013
		MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF THE FALSE ROOT-KNOT NEMATODE Nacobbus aberrans FROM NORTH AMERICA	-October 2009

		____ Powers, Thomas; Harris, Timothy; Higgins, Rebecca; Sutton, Lisa; Powers, Kirsten. 2010. *Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Discocriconemella* inarata, an Endemic Nematode from North American Native Tallgrass Prairies** Journal of Nematology
Publications		____ Blok,V.C. and T.O.Powers. 2009. Biochemical and molecular identification. In Root-knot Nematodes, Eds Perry, Moens, and Starr. Publisher: CABI Publishing, UK. ____
		Porazinska, Dorota; Giblin-Davis, Robin; Faller, Lina; Farmerie, William; Kanzaki, Natsumi; Morris, Krystalynne; Powers, Thomas; Sung, Way; Tucker, Abraham; Thomas, W Kelley. 2009. Evaluating high-throughput sequencing as a method for metagenomic analysis of nematode diversity. Molecular Ecology Resources 9(6) 1439-1450. ____
		Powers,T.O., Neher, D.A., Mullin, P., Esquivel, A., Giblin-Davis, R.M., Kanzaki, N., Stock, S.P., Mora, M.M., and L. Uribe-Lorio. 2009. Tropical nematode diversity:Vertical stratification of nematode communities in a Costa Rican humid lowland rainforest. Molecular Ecology 18: 985-996. ____
		Simard, L., Belair, G., Powers, T., Tremblay, N., and J. Dionne. 2008. Incidence and population density of plant-parasitic nematodes on golf courses in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. Journal of Nematology 40:000-000. ____
		Mendoza , R.B., T.G. Franti, J.W. Doran, T. Powers and C.W. Zanner. 2008. Tillage Effects on Soil Quality Indicators and Nematode Abundance in Loessial Soil Under Long-term No-till Production. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, 39:2169-2190. ____
		Brito JA, Kaur R, Cetintas R, Stanley JD, Mendes ML, McAvoy EJ, Powers TO, and Dickson DW. 2008. *Identification and isozyme characterisation of Meloidogyne* spp. infecting horticultural and agronomic crops, and weed plants in Florida**. Nematology 10:757-766. ____
		Esquivel, A., P. Guerrero., R. Pena-Santiago and T. Powers. 2007. Free-living dorylaimid nematodes from nature reserves in Costa Rica. The genus Pachydorylaimus Siddiqi, 1983. Nematropica 37:317-333 ____
		Abebe E, Baldwin JG, Adams B, Hope D, Gardner S, Huettel R, Mullin P, Powers TO, Sharma J, Ye W and Thomas WK. 2006. A position paper on the electronic publication of nematode taxonomic manuscripts. Journal of Nematology 38:305-311. ____
		Todd, T.C., T.O.Powers, and P.G.Mullin. 2006. Sentinel nematodes of land-use change and restoration. Journal of Nematology 38:20-27. ____
		Powers, T.O. P.G. Mullin, T.S. Harris, L. A. Sutton, and R.S. Higgins. 2005. Incorporating molecular identification into a large-scale regional nematode survey. Journal of Nematology. 37:226-235. ____
		Mullin, P.G., T.S. Harris, and T.O.Powers. 2005. Phylogenetic relationships of Nygolimina and Dorylaimina (Nematoda: Dorylaimida) inferred using small subunit ribosomal DNA. Nematology 7:59-79. ____
		Powers, T.O. 2004. Nematode molecular diagnostics: From bands to barcodes. Annual Review of Phytopatology. 42:367-385 ____
		Duncan, G. A. , P.H. Adler, K.P. Pruess, and T.O.Powers. 2004. *Molecular differentiation of two sibling species of the black fly Simulium vittatum* (Diptera: Simuliidae), based on randomly amplified polymorphic DNA**. Genome 47(2) 373-380. ____
		Brito, J., T.O.Powers, P.G.Mullin, R.N. Inserra, and D. W. Dickson. 2004. Morphological and molecular characterization of Meloidogyne mayaguensis isolates from Florida. Journal of Nematology. 36: 232-240.

this page updated 12-2009