Dr. Eugene B. Small Associate Professor Department of Biology Biology-Psychology Building University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742 email: es20@umail.umd.edu phone: (301) 405-6895

Research Interest: Protistan Systematics

Dr. Small's research interests are centered on an understanding of protistan, and especially ciliophoran, systematics, phylogeny, and evolution. His and his students' laboratory and field work include: studies of comparative morphology and morphogenesis, utilizing both light and electron optics; comparative biochemical analysis of ciliate nutrition as applied to axenic cultivation; comparative biochemical analysis of proteins and plasmid DNA applicable to comparative systematic studies of ciliates; analysis of ciliophoran/protistan faunules from deep sea hydrothermal vents, pelagic plankton, psammobiotic coastal shores, and marine islandic caves, since many of the most interesting protists for the study of phylogeny derive from the least understood marine habitats. Most recently Dr. Small has been working on phylogenetic relationships of intranuclear plasmid DNA and structural cortical proteins, analyzed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, in axenically cultivated scuticociliates.

Representative Publications

Small, E.B., An essay on the evolution of ciliophoran cytoarchitecture based on descent from within a karyorelictean ancestry. Origins of Life 13, 217-228 (1984)

Small, E.B. and Lynn, D.H., Phylum Ciliophora Doflein, 190l. In: J.J. Lee, S.H. Hutner and E. C. Bovee (eds.), An Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa, Society of Protozoologists, Lawrence, KS, pp. 393-575 (1985)

Small, E.B., Heisler, J., Sniezek, J. and Iliffe, T.M., Glauconema bermudense n. sp. (Scuticociliatida, Oligohymenophorea), a troglobitic ciliophoran from Bermudian marine caves. Stygologia 2, 167-179 (1986)