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Photograph of David Carlini

David Carlini Associate Professor CAS | BIO | Biology

Additional Positions at AU
Affiliate Faculty, Environmental Science
Degrees
PhD, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary

MS, Florida Institute of Technology

BA, University of California, Santa Barbara

Bio
My research interests include the evolution and genetics of natural populations, and the molecular evolution of protein-coding genes.
See Also
Biology Department
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • BIO-485 Bioinformatics

Spring 2025

  • BIO-356 Genetics With Laboratory

  • BIO-356 Genetics With Laboratory

  • BIO-356 Genetics With Laboratory

  • BIO-356 Genetics With Laboratory

  • BIO-356 Genetics With Laboratory

  • BIO-356 Genetics With Laboratory

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

(† Denotes AU undergraduate student. * Denotes AU graduate student)

  • Carlini DB, †Winslow SK, Cloppenborg‑Schmidt K, Baines JF. 2024. Quantitative microbiome profiling of honey bee (Apis mellifera) guts is predictive of winter colony loss in northern Virginia (USA). Scientific Reports 14:11021.
  • Fong DW, Carlini DB. 2023. Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives on Groundwater Colonization by the Amphipod Crustacean Gammarus minus. In F. Malard, C. Griebler, S. Rétaux (Ed.), Groundwater Ecology and Evolution. Acacemic Press, Elsevier, London, U.K.
  • Fong, DW, Orndorff W, Carlini DB. 2021. Species status evaluation of Lirceus usdagalan, L. culveri, and L. hargeri populations (Isopoda; Asellidae) based on a large scale next-generation sequence data set. Conservation Genetics 22: 661-667.
  • †Ballard A, †Bieniek S, Carlini DB. 2019. The fitness consequences of synonymous mutations in Escherichia coli: Experimental evidence for a pleiotropic effect of translational selection. Gene 694: 111-120.
  • Østbye K, Østbye  E, Lien AM, †Lee LR, Lauritzen SE, Carlini DB. 2018. Morphology and life history in cave and surface populations of Gammarus lacustris. PLoS ONE 13: e0205556.
  • Carlini DB, Fong DW. 2017. The transcriptomes of cave and surface populations of Gammarus minus (Crustacea: Amphipoda) provide evidence for positive selection on cave downregulated transcripts. PLoS ONE 12: e0186173.
  • Carlini DB, †Makowski M. 2015. Codon bias and gene ontology in holometabolous and hemimetabolous insects. Journal of Evolutionary Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 324: 686–698.
  • Carlini DB, *Satish S, Fong DW. 2013. Parallel reduction in expression, but no loss of functional constraint, in two opsin paralogs within cave populations of Gammarus minus (Crustacea: Amphipoda). BMC Evolutionary Biology (doi:10.1186/1471-2148-13-89).
  • *Aspiras AC, †Prasad R, Fong DW, Carlini DB, Angelini DR. 2012. Parallel reduction in expression of the eye development gene hedgehog in separately derived cave populations of the amphipod Gammarus minus. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 25: 995–1001.
  • *Hutchins B, Fong DW, Carlini DB. 2010. Genetic population structure of the Madison Cave isopod, Antrolana lira (Flabellifera; Cirolanidae) in the Shenandoah Valley of the eastern United States. Journal of Crustacean Biology 30: 312–322.
  • Hense W, *Anderson N, Hutter S, Stephan W, Parsch J, Carlini DB. 2010. Experimentally increased codon bias in the Drosophila Adh gene leads to an increase in larval, but not adult, alcohol dehydrogenase activity. Genetics 184: 547–555.
  • Carlini DB, †Manning J, †Sullivan PG, Fong DW. 2009. Molecular genetic variation and population structure in morphologically differentiated cave and surface populations of the freshwater amphipod Gammarus minus. Molecular Ecology 18: 1932–1945.

Research Interests

Current projects in my lab include: 1) transcriptome profiling of cave and surface populations of freshwater amphipods (Gammarus minus, Stygobromus tenuis, and Crangonyx shoemaker), with an aim toward identifying and characterizing patterns of variation in differentially regulated genes, 2) use of next-generation sequencing to evaluate the species status of Lirceus usdagalun, a cave-dwelling freshwater isopod on the U.S. endangered species list, 3) comparison of photolyase sequence variation, photolyase gene expression, and UV-tolerance in cave and surface populations of freshwater crustaceans, and 4) honey bee (Apis mellifera) metagenomics.