Tracy Douglas is considered a veteran when it comes to working with Dictyostelium discoideum. She graduated from Rice University in 2008 with a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She spent some of those years working in the Strassmann/Queller lab. Tracy attained her MS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2011 from Rice University. She has been studying genetic diversity and social sexual interactions within the species Dictyostelium discoideum to examine the influence of sex on population and social structure. She has recently identified potential tropical cryptic species in clones classified as D. discoideum that were genetically distinct from other D. discoideum groups and is now looking at mating compatibility between the D. discoideum clones in this study to identify any reproductive isolation between groups. Currently, she is focusing on developing methods for identifying potential cheating in the sexual stage of D. discoideum.
Publications
- Douglas, T. E., Brock, D. A., Adu-Oppong, B., Queller, D. C., & Strassmann, J. E. 2013. Collection and cultivation of dictyostelids from the wild. Book chapter in Methods in Molecular Biology, Dictyostelium discoideum Protocols Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey, USA
- Douglas, TE, MR Kronforst, DC Queller, and JE Strassmann. (2011) Genetic diversity in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum: population differentiation and cryptic species. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 60(3): 455-462.
- Brock, DA, TE Douglas, DC Queller, and JE Strassmann (2010) Primitive agriculture in a social amoeba. Nature 469: 393-396.
- Jack, CN, JG Ridgeway, NJ Mehdiabadi, EI Torres, TA Edwards, DC Queller, JE Strassmann (2008) Segregate or cooperate – a study of the interaction between two species of Dictyostelium. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8:293.
The Queller/Strassmann Lab 