Population Genetics of Brown Tide Blooms

在过去十年中，褐潮微藻--厌食金黄色葡萄球菌的大量繁殖破坏了长岛东部、纽约和长岛南岸的大南湾的对虾湾和园丁湾的生态。据报道，罗德岛州和新泽西州也出现了这种生物的大量繁殖。这种繁荣带来的经济后果包括摧毁了佩科尼湾每年价值200万美元的扇贝渔业。虽然研究已经阐明了一些有利于褐飞虱开花的环境条件，但如果不了解其种群遗传结构的动态，就不可能清楚地了解其生物学和全面的防治政策。本研究的目的是建立基于聚合酶链式反应(PCR)的分子生物学技术，用于快速研究褐飞虱开花间期和开花种群间的时间和空间遗传变异。长岛水华在空间和时间上分离的假说，代表了不同基因类型是春夏季水华的主要成员的变异型变异型变种，这一假说将被用分子技术来测试变异性变异型变异性。这些技术将被用来评估长岛样本中褐潮暴发种群的空间和时间遗传变异性。还将对纽约长岛布卢姆种群与罗德岛、新泽西和德克萨斯州种群的遗传亲缘关系进行比较。

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.