Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Armed with tweezers, a rubber-booted Creighton University graduate from Iowa has been wading into streams in the Galapagos Islands, helping local officials research how to combat biting black flies without upsetting the delicate balance of nature in the South American archipelago made famous by Charles Darwin.
Jessica Gaulter's yearlong Galapagos adventure is more than an exotic experience, although it is that too. Gaulter, a 2011 Creighton graduate, uses the tweezers to pluck black fly larvae from waterways so she and other scientists can study the flies' genes. She won a Fulbright scholarship to work on the research.
It's connected to a major international project, led by Creighton assistant professor Charles Brockhouse, to study biting black flies so public health officials can combat river blindness, which causes blindness and disabling skin disease in Africa, South America and elsewhere. The flies spread the disease.
In the Galapagos, off the coast of Ecuador, Gaulter works with Ecuadorean scientists and the Charles Darwin Foundation on scientific research they hope will help solve their own local problem of biting flies. River blindness hasn't hit the islands yet, Brockhouse said, but there has been rapid growth in local black fly populations.
"So we are working on the genomics to identify the origin of the species, look at its ability to transmit the disease should infected persons move to the islands, and advise on control measures," he said.
Gaulter's story is an example of where a youthful interest in science can take a person. Her interests developed in high school in Urbandale, Iowa. She was involved in science bowls, participated in quiz tournaments and competed with friends in a physics roller coaster competition at Iowa State University.
At Creighton, Gaulter majored in biology and Spanish. She worked for four years, beginning her first semester, in associate professor Laura Hansen's skin cancer research laboratory. Her appetite for international public health and the Spanish language were whetted by Creighton's Dominican Encounter program in the Dominican Republic and by volunteering in Peru.
She also took a biology course in England with Brockhouse. As industry, preparation and fortune would have it, Brockhouse leads an international effort called the Black Fly Genome Project, which recently won funding from the National Institutes of Health.
He and scientists from several other U.S. universities, plus researchers in England and Africa, are sequencing the genes of 11 black fly species in hopes of helping to eradicate river blindness.
The disease, formally known as onchocerciasis, infects about 39 million people in Africa, the Arabian peninsula and Central and South America. Caused by a parasitic worm spread by certain black flies, it is the second-leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide.
"The World Health Organization is gearing up for a major push to reduce river blindness in Africa, and to do so requires information on black fly populations that we cannot provide without the genome sequences," Brockhouse wrote in an email.
In the Galapagos, officials need to know about the black flies' species history. Strict regulations protect the islands' unique fauna and flora. Tourists, farmers and residents started complaining about biting flies in the late 1980s. Demand to combat the flies has grown with their numbers.
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But they can't just kill the bugs. If the flies on Galapagos are an "ancient" species, "you don't want to knock them out, because then other species might go too," Brockhouse said.
If they're more recent arrivals, which native species would depend on less, then more drastic measures can be taken.
Brockhouse and fellow researchers included the Galapagos fly in the Black Fly Genome Project. Brockhouse made contact with the Charles Darwin Foundation in Ecuador.
Ecuadorean scientists and Galapagos conservationists were open to having Gaulter on deck in their fly fact-finding pursuit.
"It was Dr. Brockhouse who sparked my interest in black fly research, got me connected with the Charles Darwin Foundation and helped with my project proposal," Gaulter said by email from the islands.
Her undergraduate studies in biology and Spanish, her experiences overseas and her training in the skin cancer lab formed a good foundation for research in the Galapagos, she said.
"I knew I did not want to go straight to medical school," Gaulter said. "I wanted at least a year to solidify my Spanish skills, improve my research abilities and see the world."
The Fulbright application process took a year. Gaulter set foot in the Galapagos in October. She returned to Iowa for Christmas break and has been back on the islands for several weeks.
"As for working here, it is paradise," Gaulter wrote. "I have gotten plenty of black fly bites, but I think that is a small price to pay for the work that I am doing. We have found plenty of larvae, (and) biting adults, and established some great monitoring sites. Some of the samples already have been sent back ... for more detailed genetic analysis."
Black flies, though related to mosquitoes, don't reproduce in standing water. They have aquatic larvae, which live only in running water. There's not much running water in the Galapagos, and most is difficult to reach.
Gaulter and her Ecuadorean co-workers hike through the jungle, farms and national parkland to find the flies' favored environs: fast-flowing streams and fairly clean water.
The larvae "tend to be on sticks, leaves or rocks that are in areas of rapid water movement," Gaulter said. "We sometimes find other types of larvae, but black flies are pretty easy to identify. I use tweezers to pick them up, then dry them off and put them in ethanol or Carnoy's (a combination of glacial acetic acid and ethanol)."
Their DNA thus preserved, the larvae are ready to be hiked back to the research station.
There's a bit of pressure to answer questions about the flies so effective control measures can be taken, Gaulter said. Thankfully, it's a group effort.
"There are several other Charles Darwin Foundation workers, as well as several international black fly specialists," working on it, Gaulter said. "It is really a group effort. ... We have been interviewing farmers to find out what they know about the black fly population and how it is affecting them personally.
"One man told us that his children could not go outside during the rainy season because the biting is so bad. The people here really want answers, and hopefully we will be able to provide them soon."
Meanwhile, being in the Galapagos is "a biologist's dream," and not only because of the work. When she jogs, for example, the scenery is quite different from back home in the Midlands.
"I see something new and interesting every day," Gaulter said. "I have to avoid stepping on sea lions and sometimes marine iguanas when I go on runs. They are everywhere."
Sea lions "happen to have complete control of the Malecón, the main boardwalk through Puerto Baquerizo Moreno (the capital). I often go running there and have to sometimes dodge the packs of lounging sea lions. For the most part, they are friendly. ... However, if you get too close to a pup, you may be barked at and even chased by the mother."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com
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