BUGZ is a user-friendly web interface designed to allow full-text search and retrieval of information from New Zealand’s largest compilation of invertebrate literature – the 'BUGS' bibliography (Ramsay & Crosby 1992). 'BUGZ' contains a literature database of 16,080 articles on the terrestrial invertebrates of New Zealand, published between 1775 and 1993 and provides full-text indexing of the more than 200,000 pages of text scanned from the articles of the BUGS bibliography. This massively enhances the search capabilities and subsequent access to archived information on the taxonomic status, life history, ecology, and conservation significance in the primary literature on New Zealand’s terrestrial invertebrates. Apart from the ability to undertake full-text searching, BUGZ is the first New Zealand biodiversity database to allow dynamic matching of its entire full-text database against the taxonomic namebank of uBio – the universal Biological indexer and organiser. Namebank is a reconciled list of over 8,000,000 taxonomic names (including homonyms, synonyms and common names) and creates a virtual link to an ever-increasing number of international biodiversity databases (e.g. GBIF, NCBI, ITIS, Species 2000) that may contain additional biodiversity information useful to the user. ... [Information of the supplier]
I am interested in the structure and evolution of animal genomes, with a particular focus on the genomes of non-model organisms. In my group, we use modern sequencing technologies to generate expressed sequence tag and genome sequence data for non-vertebrates (such as earthworms, nematodes and tardigrades), and analyse these with a variety of bioinformatics tools (including many we have written in house). In particular we are interested in the evolution of operons and trans-splicing in nematodes, the responses of soil invertebrates such as earthworms to heavy metals and pollutants, the origins of gene novelty, the deep phylogeny of animals and the evolution of development in the moulting animals such as tardigrades. We are also developing DNA barcoding techniques to identify meiofauna and other hard-to-identify taxa. We have collaborations with a wide range of colleagues round the world working on beautiful small invertebrates and their evolution. The Blaxter Lab also houses the School of Biological Sciences Sequencing Service, an internationally renowned unit that provides both traditional capillary Sanger sequencing and next generation SOLEXA and 454 sequencing to the University, NERC science and other users. The SBSSS has ABI3730, SOLEXA 1G and 454 GSFLX instrumentation. (from http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/biology/people?id=mblaxter&cw_xml=homepage.php) ... [Miscellaneous as indicated]
