Research Training Program

Tanjac Kujac
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

Mark Littler, Ph.D.
Supervising Scientist
Department of Botany

"My goals were realized. I consider the internship successful."

Algae Curation/Studies

This project involved pressing algae specimens and dissecting those pressed algae that are of the genus Penicillis. After dissecting the tuft and stipe parts, drawings were made of these specimens to get measurements of tip diameters, etc. These measurements allowed for the identification of the specimens, i.e. whether they are of the species P. capitatus, P pyriformous, P. lamourouxxi, or P. dimetosis. For specimens that did not fit any of the characteristics of these species, it was determined whether it was a described or new species. This was determined by producing cladistic trees using a particular computer program.