Marine Biology Commons^™

Population Genomics, Ecology And Conservation Of Asterias Sea Stars In The North Atlantic, Melenia I. Giakoumis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Uncovering how species respond to environmental change is a central question in biology (Ehrlén & Morris 2015; Habibullah et al. 2022). It is the key to elucidating the past, understanding the present and predicting the future of species’ population dynamics. This dissertation investigates the influence of environmental change on intertidal species’ distributions and genomics at several timescales, with implications for conservation.

Environmental changes have occurred throughout history, on a geological scale, and have shaped the global patterns of species’ distributions and population sizes. Biologists have long studied how geological history has shaped species distributions (Sanmartín 2012) in both terrestrial (Liu …

The Transcriptome Of The Bermuda Fireworm Odontosyllis Enopla (Annelida: Syllidae): A Unique Luciferase Gene Family And Putative Epitoky-Related Genes, Mercer R. Brugler, M. Teresa Aguado, Michael Tessler, Mark Siddall

Publications and Research

The Bermuda fireworm Odontosyllis enopla exhibits an extremely tight circalunar circadian behavior that results in an impressive bioluminescent mating swarm, thought to be due to a conventional luciferase-mediated oxidation of a light-emitting luciferin. In addition, the four eyes become hypertrophied and heavily pigmented, and the nephridial system is modified to store and release gametes and associated secretions. In an effort to elucidate transcripts related to bioluminescence, circadian or circalunar periodicity, as well as epitoky-related changes of the eyes and nephridial system, we examined the transcriptomic profile of three female O. enopladuring a bioluminescent swarm in Ferry Reach, Bermuda. …

Convergent Evolution Of Biochemical Innovations In Polychaetes: Characterizing The Molecular Basis Of Bioluminescence And Venom Production, Aida E. Verdes Gorín

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The convergent evolution of phenotypic traits is a widespread phenomenon across the tree of life and is explained as the outcome of different taxa facing similar selective forces or environmental conditions. A longstanding question in evolutionary biology is whether the evolution of convergent phenotypes in unrelated lineages is driven by similar or different molecular processes. The research presented here investigates this question by characterizing the molecular basis of two biochemical innovations, bioluminescence and venom production, that have evolved independently in different lineages of polychaetes worms (Annelida). We use an integrative approach, combining next-generation sequencing, phylogenetics and computational tools to evaluate …