Project description:Reproduction of queen conchs at nearshore sites in the Florida Keys is known to be impaired (Delgado et al. 2004). A recent microarray study of male queen conchs collected from the Florida Keys during the early part of the reproductive season (February, 2007) indicated that NS conchs show differences in expression of spermatogenesis-related and small GTPase signaling transcripts (Spade et al. 2010). The current study investigates gene expression in the ovary of female queen conchs from the same sampling effort in February, 2007.
Project description:Reproduction of queen conchs at nearshore sites in the Florida Keys is known to be impaired (Delgado et al. 2004). A recent microarray study of male queen conchs collected from the Florida Keys during the early part of the reproductive season (February, 2007) indicated that NS conchs show differences in expression of spermatogenesis-related and small GTPase signaling transcripts (Spade et al. 2010). The current study investigates gene expression in the digestive gland, which is closely associated with ovary, of female queen conchs from the same sampling effort in February, 2007.
Project description:Twelve inshore and six offshore colonies were reciprocally transplanted during 1 year (July 2017- July 2018) at Florida Keys (location). After this period samples were collected from the field and brought to the Experimental Reef Laboratory facilities (RSMAS, Miami) to be acclimated to 30C during 7 days in six aquaria. Three aquaria were keep under initial conditions for the duration of the experiment (30C) and three aquaria had the temperature increased everyday during 7 days to a final temperature of 32C. A total of 56 samples were collected for RNAseq after 6 days of the temperature treatment and stored at -80C.
Project description:Reproduction of queen conchs at nearshore sites in the Florida Keys is known to be impaired (Delgado et al. 2004). A recent microarray study of male queen conchs collected from the Florida Keys during the early part of the reproductive season (February, 2007) indicated that NS conchs show differences in expression of spermatogenesis-related and small GTPase signaling transcripts (Spade et al. 2010). The current study investigates gene expression in the ovary of female queen conchs from the same sampling effort in February, 2007. One-color (Cy3) oligonucleotide array experiment. Each array sample is an individual biological replicate. The study includes four biological replicates offshore and three biological replicate nearshore. Offshore conchs exhibit normal reproduction, and so were considered the reference group in the analysis.
Project description:Reproduction of queen conchs at nearshore sites in the Florida Keys is known to be impaired (Delgado et al. 2004). A recent microarray study of male queen conchs collected from the Florida Keys during the early part of the reproductive season (February, 2007) indicated that NS conchs show differences in expression of spermatogenesis-related and small GTPase signaling transcripts (Spade et al. 2010). The current study investigates gene expression in the digestive gland, which is closely associated with ovary, of female queen conchs from the same sampling effort in February, 2007. One-color (Cy3) oligonucleotide array experiment. Each array sample is an individual biological replicate. The study includes four biological replicates offshore and three biological and one technical replicate nearshore. Offshore conchs exhibit normal reproduction, and so were considered the reference group in the analysis.
Project description:<p>Sponges are sessile filter-feeders that can process vast amounts of water and are known to influence the chemistry of the surrounding seawater. There has been limited work however to understand the extent to which sponges alter dissolved organic matter (DOM), yet in areas where sponges are abundant, sponges may contribute significantly to the reef seawater profile of DOM. This work provides an in-depth examination of six prevalent sponges on Caribbean reefs and how they alter DOM and other seawater nutrients. Incurrent and excurrent seawater samples were collected for each of the six sponge species and processed for: inorganic nutrients, fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM), untargeted and targeted metabolomics, and particulate matter by flow cytometry. Sponges were sampled from two coral reef sites in the Florida Keys (Florida, USA): Looe Key reef and Wonderland reef in the southern Florida Keys. We found higher that sponges altered a relatively small subset of the DOM profile and were a net sink of most mass features from untargeted metabolomics. However, sponges also released some putatively labile metabolites and processed DOM in a species-specific manner. These results provide additional support for the large impact that sponges have in the dissolved nutrient profile on coral reefs and provide support for a species-specific impact, with some species altering the DOM profile, fDOM profile, and/or inorganic nutrients to a greater extent than other species. These results have implications for better understanding the influence of the sponge community on coral reef nutrient dynamics.</p>
Project description:<p>A transmission mode-direct analysis in real time-quadrupole time of flight-mass spectrometry (TM-DART-QTOF-MS)-based analytical method coupled to multivariate statistical analysis was developed to interrogate lipophilic compounds in seawater samples without the need of desalinization. An untargeted metabolomics approach addressed here as seaomics was successfully implemented to discriminate sea surface microlayer (SML) from underlying water (ULW) samples (n=22, 10 paired samples) collected during a field campaign at the Cape Verde islands in September-October 2017. A panel of 11 ionic species detected in all samples allowed sample class discrimination by means of supervised multivariate statistical models. Tentative identification of species enriched at SML samples suggests that fatty alcohols, halogenated compounds, and oxygenated boron-containing organic compounds are available at the surface for water-air transfer processes. A subset of SML samples (n=5) were subject to on-site experiments during the campaign using a lab-to-the-field approach to test their secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation potency. Results from these experiments and the analytical seaomics strategy provide a proof of concept for an approach to identifying organic molecules involved in aerosol formation processes at the water/air interface.</p>