DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Effects of Microbes and Antimicrobial Compounds on Behavior of Cnidarian Larvae

对于美国和世界各地的人们来说，珊瑚礁是食物、旅游收入和文化自豪感的来源，但包括捕鱼、陆地径流、污水输入、化学污染、全球变化和疾病在内的一系列攻击已经将大多数珊瑚礁推到了崩溃的边缘。个别珊瑚生长极其缓慢，因此未来珊瑚礁的恢复将主要取决于仅存的少数珊瑚能否成功有性繁殖。在幼虫阶段，珊瑚进行复杂的游泳和寻找行为来选择它们的栖息地。先前的工作表明，水柱细菌和抗生素处理分别改变了实验室培养的珊瑚幼虫的游泳率和沉降率。因此，与细菌的相互作用对于珊瑚生命周期的成功完成非常重要。该项目将使用珊瑚产卵期间的现场收集、行为分析和基于荧光的显微镜来确定珊瑚幼虫与细菌的物理相互作用，以及这些相互作用中的哪些对正常的幼虫行为最重要。这项研究的结果将有助于促进太平洋和加勒比海珊瑚礁生态系统珊瑚种群的恢复。这一结果还将增加对动物繁殖和发育、动物行为以及动物与细菌之间相互作用的科学理解。在该项目期间，至少两名学生将接受研究潜水和野外工作方法方面的培训，至少一名学生将接受分子生物学和显微镜方面的培训。

Coral reefs are a source of food, tourism revenue and cultural pride for people in the United States and around the world, yet a suite of assaults including fishing, terrestrial runoff, sewage input, chemical pollution, global change and disease have pushed most coral reefs to the point of collapse. Individual corals grow extremely slowly, therefore future recovery of coral reefs will depend primarily on the successful sexual reproduction of the few corals that remain. In their larval stage, corals conduct complex swimming and searching behaviors to select their settlement locations. Previous work demonstrated that water column bacteria and antibiotic treatments alter the swimming rate and settlement rate, respectively, of lab-raised coral larvae. Therefore, interactions with bacteria are important for the successful completion of the coral life cycle. This project will use field collections during coral spawning, behavioral assays, and fluorescence-based microscopy to determine how coral larvae physically interact with bacteria and which of these interactions with bacteria are most important for normal larval behavior. The results of this research will help foster coral population recovery in Pacific and Caribbean reef ecoystems. The results will also add to the scientific understanding of animal reproduction and development, animal behavior, and interactions between animals and bacteria. During the project, at least two students will be trained in research diving and fieldwork methods, and at least one student will be trained in molecular biology and microscopy.