[All-postdocs] Bioseminar this Thursday - Joint Program students Ruijiao Sun and Cynthia Becker

[Margot McKlveen]

**

*Biology Department Virtual Seminar*

*

Thursday, December 17 at Noon

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89810885529


MIT-WHOI Joint Program students

Ruijiao Sun:“A divergent divorce pattern between sexes in a seabird 
population with unequal sex ratio”

Cynthia Becker: “Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease-enriched bacteria 
identified in coral and seawater using rapid, field-based sequencing”


Ruijiao Sun

”A divergent divorce pattern between sexes in a seabird population with 
unequal sex ratio"

Abstract: Many animals form long-term monogamous pair-bonds and 
disruption of a pair-bond (divorce and widowhood) could have important 
consequences on demography. A repeatable divorce pattern was found in 
this population of wandering albatrosses. Females were likely to spread 
their reproduction with several partners throughout their life as a 
bet-hedging strategy, while males were probably forced to divorce. In 
wandering albatrosses, divorce did not seem to be an adaptive process 
because there was no improvement of breeding success following divorce 
even when the effects of the first breeding attempt made by a newly 
formed pair was excluded, and poor reproductive performance had no 
impact on divorce probability. The distinct mechanisms of pair-bond 
disruption between sexes lead to a reduction of remaining lifetime 
reproductive success only in male individuals because of the difficulty 
of finding a new female partner in this male-biased population with 
consequently several missed reproductions.


Cynthia Becker

"Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease-enriched bacteria identified in coral 
and seawater using rapid, field-based sequencing"

Abstract: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) is a devastating coral 
disease. Since 2014, it has spread along the entire Florida Reef Tract 
and into the greater Caribbean, where it affects over one-third of 
Caribbean reef-building coral species, presumably via a water-borne 
vector. In January 2019, it was first detected in St. Thomas, United 
States Virgin Islands (USVI). To more quickly identify and respond to 
this coral disease outbreak, we developed a rapid pipeline for 
microbiome characterization, which employed the portable, high-accuracy 
sequencing platform, the Illumina iSeq 100 System. By transforming a 
home rental in St. Thomas, USVI, to a molecular laboratory, we 
collected, processed, and sequenced diseased or apparently healthy coral 
tissues and near-coral seawater from four coral species over a span of 
10 days. Analysis of microbial communities associated with diseased 
tissue revealed 25 SCTLD-enriched amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). 
Furthermore, these taxa were detectable in near-coral seawater, a 
potential recruitment zone for pathogens. Disease-associated ASVs 
belonging to Vibrio, Arcobacter, Rhizobiaceae, and Rhodobacteraceae 
revealed representatives of previously identified coral 
disease-associated bacteria as well as undescribed lineages not 
previously associated with corals. This work represents the first rapid 
coral disease sequencing effort and offers specific bacterial targets 
for SCTLD research, which could help slow or stop the spread of this 
unprecedented coral disease.*

-- 
Margot McKlveen | she/her
Senior Administrative Assistant
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Redfield Building Room 305 | MS 32
266 Woods Hole Rd.
Woods Hole, MA 02543
508-289-2334
mmcklveen at whoi.edu

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