Running Out of Time

The end is near for at least three of the interns in the Deheyn and Latz labs. Caroline, Melissa, and Holland (who interned through the Hughes and SURF programs) presented their research in an informal setting for critique by all of us other lab members (what Jenny likes to call the "lab family"). Humorously enough, they all did projects involving corals, so I got to experience at least three solid hours of discussion and debate over how the data should be presented, what information needed to be included (or excluded), and how the term zooxanthallae is too general of a word to describe the dinoflagellates that exist in an obligatory symbiotic relationship inside of the corals and are vital to maintaining homeostasis in reef systems worldwide (now that's a mouthful).

Regardless of all the technicalities (from which I did learn a lot about corals), here are the presentations in a nutshell:

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Holland's Presentation
Size Dependent Settlement Behavior and Lipid Use of Coral Larvae in Reduced Salinity

One of the ways that corals reproduce is called brooding. The corals (most of which are hermaphodites) develop "planulae" inside them, which they then release into the water to search for a suitable place to make a home. These planulae contain reserves of lipids that will provide them with energy as they search for a good place to settle. In addition, there are small and big planulae. By reducing the salinity of the water, the resultant environmental stress caused the coral planulae to search harder and expend more energy looking for a suitable substrate to settle upon. They found that the small planulae expended their lipid stores much quicker and were forced to settle even though there were no suitable substrates, supporting the hypothesis that the larger planulae have more lipids and thus more energy to search for a good place to settle

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Melissa's Presentation
Sensitivity of the coral Acropora yongei and filamentous algae Bryopsis sp. to hypoxia

When things go downhill in a reef ecosystem, corals are often overrun by algae. In normal conditions, however, do algae have a competitive advantage? At nighttime, corals and algae are in direct competition because photosynthetic organisms use oxygen at night, when there are hypoxic conditions. Over a ten day experiment, the results showed that the algae had a competitive advantage over corals in more hypoxic conditions. The corals lost dinoflagellates and had decreased GFP expression in increased hypoxia.

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Caroline's Presentation
Effects of Copper Correlation between Acropora yongei and bleaching

Copper contamination is one of the main pollutants in coral reef ecosystems due to marinas in close proximity to reefs or boats anchored over the ecosystems for tourism and diving. Copper pollution possibly leads to the presence of free radicals and oxidative stress on corals, which can cause bleaching. Since boats might be docked for long periods of time by reefs or perhaps be anchored over the corals for short interims, the study tested both chronic exposure and acute exposure with a recovery period. The results showed that the corals were not recolonized by their dinoflagellates during the recovery period after acute exposure to copper chloride. The results of the chronically exposed corals are forthcoming.
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I am continually amazed that we seem to know so much (and have definitely worked hard to find out many things) but still know so little. One of the touchy parts about presenting and discussing science is that there is still a lot of speculation that must be treated as such and not presented as fact. Many questions remain unanswered and the research we do just reveals more avenues of experimentation. A lot about this planet remains unknown, a mystery that surrounds us in the nature that even technology in all its glory cannot tame, but can only observe. Which is why at the end of each presentation they suggested further studies that could be done to elaborate on their findings and answer new questions that constantly come to mind. For example, the role of Green Fluorescent Protein (which was used in two of the studies to gauge the relative health of the coral and the presence of dinoflagellates, and which is also used in many bio- medical and engineering applications) is only hypothesized about and its exact purpose in many organisms is unknown.

Alas, it is yet a discovery waiting to be made--perhaps by you... or maybe me.