Population Genetics of Brown Tide Blooms

在过去的十年里，棕色潮微藻Aureococcus anophagefferens的大量繁殖破坏了纽约长岛东部的佩科尼奇湾和加德纳湾以及长岛海岸沿着大南湾的生态。在罗得岛和新泽西也有这种生物大量繁殖的报道。这种水华的经济后果包括破坏了佩科尼克湾每年200万美元的扇贝渔业。尽管研究已经阐明了一些有利于A.因此，如果不了解其种群遗传结构的动态，就无法清楚地了解其生物学和全面的控制政策。本研究的目的是发展基于聚合酶链反应（PCR）的分子生物学技术，用于快速分析不同开花期和不同开花期种群间的遗传变异。嗜食动物长岛开花的时空分离性代表了A.利用分子生物学技术对不同基因型的春、夏季花优势种的食心虫进行遗传变异分析。嗜食动物这些技术将被用来评估的空间和时间的遗传变异性的棕色潮水华人口在长岛样品。纽约长岛的遗传相关性比较。开花种群的那些在罗得岛，新泽西，得克萨斯州也将执行。

During the past decade blooms of the brown tide microalga, Aureococcus anophagefferens, have devastated the ecology of Peconic Bay and Gardeners Bay in eastern Long Island, New York and Great South Bay along the south shore of Long Island. Blooms of this organism have also been reported in Rhode Island and New Jersey. Economic ramifications of this bloom have included the destruction of the 2 million dollar a year scallop fishery in Peconic Bay. Although studies have elucidated some of the environmental conditions that favor blooms of A. anophagefferens, clear understanding of its biology and comprehensive policy for its control cannot be achieved without understanding the dynamics of its population genetic structure. The goal is to develop Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based molecular techniques which can be used to rapidly characterize the temporal and spatial genetic variation among inter-bloom and bloom populations of A. anophagefferens. The hypothesis that spatially and temporally disjunct Long Island blooms, represent genetically variable populations of A. anophagefferens in which different genotypes are the dominant members of spring and summer blooms will be tested using molecular techniques to assay for genetic variability in A. anophagefferens. These techniques will be used to evaluate the spatial and temporal genetic variability of brown tide bloom populations in Long Island samples. Comparrisons of the genetic relatedness of the Long Island, N.Y. bloom populations to those in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Texas will also performed.