Marine Biology Commons^™

Thermal Stress-Related Spatiotemporal Variations In High-Latitude Coral Reef Benthic Communities, Nicholas P. Jones, Joana Figueiredo, David S. Gilliam

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

High-latitude coral reef communities have been postulated as the first areas to undergo reorganisation under climate change. Tropicalisation has been identified in some high-latitude communities and is predicted in others, but it is unclear how the resident benthic taxa are affected. We conducted a long-term (2007–2016) assessment of changes to benthic community cover in relation to thermal stress duration on the Southeast Florida Reef Tract (SEFRT). Thermal stress events, both hot and cold, had acute (thermal stress duration affected benthic cover that year) and chronic (thermal stress duration affected benthic cover the following year) impacts on benthic cover. Chronic heat …

Assessing The Potential For Range Expansion Of The Red Tide Algae Karenia Brevis, Edward W. Young

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Phytoplankton communities are vital to oceanic ecosystems. While most are harmless or beneficial, a select group possesses the capability to produce toxins and cause mass die-offs of marine organisms. Florida red tide, caused by blooms of the dinoflagellate Karenia brevis, is common in the Gulf of Mexico, although blooms have been transported to the Atlantic coast and impacted estuaries where K. brevis is not normally found. An in-depth overview of compiled estuary research evaluated the possibility of the continued spread of Florida red tide blooms to Southeastern Atlantic estuaries and the likelihood of establishment in non-native regions. A …

Effects Of Surfactants On The Generation Of Sea Spray During Tropical Cyclones, Breanna L. Vanderplow

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Despite significant improvement in computational and observational capabilities, predicting intensity and intensification of major tropical cyclones remains a challenge. In 2017 Hurricane Maria intensified to a Category 5 storm within 24 hours, devastating Puerto Rico. In 2019 Hurricane Dorian, predicted to remain tropical storm, unexpectedly intensified into a Category 5 storm and destroyed the Bahamas. The official forecast and computer models were unable to predict rapid intensification of these storms. One possible reason for this is that key physics, including microscale processes at the air-sea interface, are poorly understood and parameterized in existing forecast models.

Under tropical cyclones, the air-sea …

Prioritizing The Largest, Oldest Corals For Disease Intervention In A Coral Disease-Ravaged Area: Southeast Florida Coral Reef Ecosystem Conservation Area, Alysha Brunelle

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Coral diseases appear to be more devastating than ever before. When a virulent disease ravages a coral ecosystem, it can significantly change the population’s demographics and cause local extinctions. Disease intervention response during such an event is impossible at a landscape scale, therefore priorities must be considered. Saving the largest, oldest colonies of reef-building species is a good choice due to their high fecundity and ecological function. Their size, as a proxy for age, is an indicator of their resistance to previous perturbations which may indicate higher fitness. Their size also provides habitat to many organisms and wave resistance in …

Linking Crude Oil And Dispersant Effects To Gene Expression Of Marine Sponge Cinachyrella, Yvain Desplat

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Because of their filter-feeding lifestyle, sponges (Phylum Porifera) have shown to be bio-accumulators of heavy metals, and bio-monitors for polychlorobiphenyl (PCB) contaminants. Furthermore, marine sponges have been shown to be regulators of reef ecosystems by fulfilling many ecological functions. However, very little is known about their behavior in the face of environmental changes. Consequently, our lab has developed the reef sponge Cinachyrella spp. as novel experimental model. We have designed an experiment to study the effects of WAF (Water Accommodated Fraction), Corexit 9500 dispersant, and CE-WAF (Chemically Enhanced Water Accommodated Fraction)mixtures, in an effort to mimic the conditions of the …

A Shark Conservationists Toolbox: Current Dna Methods And Techniques Aiding In The Conservation Of Sharks, Arianna N. Nixon

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Elasmobranchs are important members of their community. Many sharks are important apex predators that help maintain the health of their ecosystem. However, shark populations are globally declining. This is partially due to the fact that sharks are highly targeted for their fins, meat, liver oil, teeth, and skin. However, they are also killed from anthropogenic effects such as habitat destruction and pollution. Most shark species have life history characteristics that also make them more vulnerable to overfishing. Sharks are also difficult to study due to their elusive nature and identification issues. That is why molecular tools are increasingly becoming important …

To Feed Or Not To Feed: Examining The Effects Of Provisioning Tourism On Nurse Sharks In Caye Caulker, Belize, Carlee Jackson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Wildlife tourism is increasing in popularity around the world, creating the need to understand alterations in animal behavior and spatial distributions that may occur due to associated anthropogenic disturbances. Nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum, Bonnaterre 1788) are commonly used for wildlife tourism within the Caye Caulker Marine Reserve in Belize. Shark and Ray Village (SRV) is a site within the reserve where nurse sharks are consistently fed by tour/snorkel boats to create an interactive experience with tourists, termed provisioning tourism. Prior to this experiment, no studies had been conducted in SRV to evaluate the impact of provisioning tourism (tourism …

Connection Between Contaminants And Marine Mammals In The Southern Ocean, Sean W. Tupper

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

The Southern Ocean encircles the continent of Antarctica and was once thought to be unaffected by human activities. However, evidence is increasing that this region has many different contaminants that threaten the region’s marine biodiversity, including marine mammals. Many of these contaminants are heavy metals or persistent organic pollutants and enter the Southern Ocean via both natural and anthropogenic processes. The impacts posed by these contaminants vary according to their type and the organism being exposed. All species of cetaceans and pinnipeds in this study were confirmed to have been exposed to one or more the contaminants reviewed. Although research …

Taxonomic Richness And Diversity Of Larval Fish Assemblages In The Oceanic Gulf Of Mexico: Links To Oceanographic Conditions, Corinne R. Meinert, Kimberly Clausen-Sparks, Maëlle Cornic, Tracey Sutton, Jay R. Rooker

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Biodiversity enhances the productivity and stability of marine ecosystems and provides important ecosystem services. The aim of this study was to characterize larval fish assemblages in pelagic waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGoM) and identify oceanographic conditions associated with areas of increased taxonomic richness (T ) and Shannon diversity (H’). Summer ichthyoplankton surveys were conducted in the NGoM in 2015 and 2016 using neuston net (surface layer; upper 1 m) and oblique bongo net (mixed layer; 0–100 m) tows. Over 17,000 fish larvae were collected over the two-year study, and 99 families of fish larvae were present. Catch …

Opinion: Midwater Ecosystems Must Be Considered When Evaluating Environmental Risks Of Deep-Sea Mining, Jeffrey C. Drazen, Craig R. Smith, Kristina Gjerde, Steven Haddock, Glenn S. Carter, Anela Choy, Malcolm R. Clark, Pierre Dutrieux, Erica Goetze, Chris Hauton, Mariko Hatta, Julian Koslow, Astrid Brigitta Leitner, Aude Pacini, Jessica Nicole Perelman, Thomas Peacock, Tracey Sutton, Les Watling, Hiroyuki Yamamoto

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Shallow-Water Coral Communities Support The Separation Of Marine Ecoregions On The West-Central Florida Gulf Coast, Brian K. Walker, Shelby Eagan, Cory Ames, Sandra Brooke, Sean Keenan, Rene Baumstark

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Florida’s west coast is a 170,000 km² bedrock shelf (west Florida shelf, WFS) comprised of north-south discontinuous carbonate outcroppings extending more than 200 km from the intertidal zone to a depth of 200 m. These outcrops support diverse benthic communities, which contribute to a multi-billion dollar recreational and commercial fishing industry, yet only about 5% of their extent has been studied in detail. Benthic communities shift over a 6.5° geographic range, but the locations of these shifts are not well-defined. Previous studies have suggested a break in biogeographic regions at Tampa Bay, south at Cape Romano, and north at …

Effectiveness Of Topical Antibiotics In Treating Corals Affected By Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, Karen L. Neely, Kevin A. Macaulay, Emily K. Hower, Michelle A. Dobler

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Since 2014, Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has led to mass mortality of the majority of hard coral species on the Florida Reef Tract. Following the successful treatment of SCTLD lesions on laboratory corals using water dosed with antibiotics, two topical pastes were developed as vehicles to directly apply antibiotic treatments to wild corals. These pastes were tested as placebos and with additions of amoxicillin on active SCTLD lesions on multiple coral species. The effectiveness of the pastes without antibiotics (placebo treatments) was 4% and 9%, no different from untreated controls. Adding amoxicillin to both pastes significantly increased effectiveness …

Trip Bs01 - Perc Pll Trip Bs01 - Jun-July 2020 Set Data, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 1, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 3, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 4, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Bs01 - Perc Pll Trip Bs01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 1, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 7, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 5, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 9, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 10, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 12, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 8, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Set 2, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Trip Dk01 - Perc Pll Trip Dk01 - Jun-July 2020 Trip Data, David Kerstetter, Sean T. Wilms, Brittany N. Savercool, Ellyn Willse

PERC Pelagic Longline Field Datasheets

Field datasheets from pelagic longline sets in the western North Atlantic from 2020-2022.

Minion-In-Arms: Nanopore Sequencing To Expedite Barcoding Of Specimen-Rich Macrofaunal Samples From Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures, Jia Jin Marc Chang, Yin Cheong Aden Ip, Andrew G. Bauman, Danwei Huang

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS) are standardized devices for sampling biodiversity in complex marine benthic habitats such as coral reefs. When coupled with DNA sequencing, these devices greatly expand our ability to document marine biodiversity. Unfortunately, the existing workflow for processing macrofaunal samples (>2-mm) in the ARMS pipeline—which involves Sanger sequencing—is expensive, laborious, and thus prohibitive for ARMS researchers. Here, we propose a faster, more cost-effective alternative by demonstrating a successful application of the MinION-based barcoding approach on the >2 mm-size fraction of ARMS samples. All data were available within 3.5–4 h, and sequencing costs relatively low at approximately …

Uncovering The Role Of Symbiodiniaceae Assemblage Composition And Abundance In Coral Bleaching Response By Minimizing Sampling And Evolutionary Biases, Timothy D. Swain, Simon Lax, Vadim Backman, Luisa A. Marcelino

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Background

Biodiversity and productivity of coral-reef ecosystems depend upon reef-building corals and their associations with endosymbiotic Symbiodiniaceae, which offer diverse functional capabilities to their hosts. The number of unique symbiotic partners (richness) and relative abundances (evenness) have been hypothesized to affect host response to climate change induced thermal stress. Symbiodiniaceae assemblages with many unique phylotypes may provide greater physiological flexibility or form less stable symbioses; assemblages with low abundance phylotypes may allow corals to retain thermotolerant symbionts or represent associations with less-suitable symbionts.

Results

Here we demonstrate that true richness of Symbiodiniaceae phylotype assemblages is generally not discoverable from …

Porewater Carbonate Chemistry Dynamics In A Temperate And A Subtropical Seagrass System, Theodor Kindeberg, Nicholas R. Bates, Travis A. Courtney, Tyler Cyronak, Alyssa Griffin, Fred T. Mackenzie, May-Linn Paulsen, Andreas J. Andersson

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Seagrass systems are integral components of both local and global carbon cycles and can substantially modify seawater biogeochemistry, which has ecological ramifications. However, the influence of seagrass on porewater biogeochemistry has not been fully described, and the exact role of this marine macrophyte and associated microbial communities in the modification of porewater chemistry remains equivocal. In the present study, carbonate chemistry in the water column and porewater was investigated over diel timescales in contrasting, tidally influenced seagrass systems in Southern California and Bermuda, including vegetated (Zostera marina) and unvegetated biomes (0–16 cm) in Mission Bay, San Diego, USA …

Erratum: Charles G. Messing (2020) A Revision Of The Unusual Feather Star Genus Atopocrinus With A Description Of A New Species (Echinodermata: Crinoidea). Zootaxa, 4731: 471–491., Charles G. Messing

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Erratum.

Comparative Study Of Spectral Sensitivity, Irradiance Sensitivity, Spatial Resolution And Temporal Resolution In The Visual Systems Of Aratus Pisonii And Ocypode Quadrata, Ruchao Qian

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Autrum’s studies (1950, 1958) on terrestrial arthropods first revealed that the visual systems of arthropods reflected their lifestyles and habitats, demonstrating that rapidly moving predatory diurnal species tend to have better temporal resolution than slower moving nocturnal species. In order to test Autrum’s hypothesis that visual adaptions are driven by predator/prey interactions, the visual physiology of a nocturnal fast-moving predatory crab, the Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), and a diurnal herbivorous crab, the mangrove tree crab (Aratus pisonii), was examined and compared. Spectral sensitivity, irradiance sensitivity, and temporal resolution of the crabs were quantified using the …