Nature vs nurture: uncovering the functional responses of stressed coral microbiomes

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This past year, I was able to conduct multiple fieldwork expeditions and accomplish a large experiment and subsequent sample processing. Surveys were conducted along the west coast of Okinawa. Targeted coral species were collected to determine microbial species across variables such as (but not limited to): temperature, distance to river input, nearest population density, etc. In addition, corals were collected and a controlled experiment was conducted. To understand how differences in microbial community structure and function impacted coral survival, corals collected along the west coast of Okinawa were exposed to different stressors, for example, temperature, pH, hypoxia, etc. This was the second attempt at the large experiment. Thousands of samples have been collected, and subsequent lab and data analyses are currently underway.