[Ecolunch] [Postdocs] [Scientists] [All] Ecolunch Thurs 11/16

[Carrie Kappel]

Just a plug for this week's talk... Becky is a good friend of mine and a 
great scientist. She gives a great talk and has some really intriguing 
new results on outbreaks of herpes-like viruses on corals in response to 
stress. Another interesting wrinkle in the complicated story of multiple 
stressors on coral reefs...

Hope you'll join us,
Carrie Kappel

Allen Hurlbert wrote:
> Please join us for this week's Ecolunch seminar on Thursday, November 16th at 12:15 p.m. Our speaker will be Dr. Becky Thurber from San Diego State University. The title of her talk is "Metagenomics as a method for investigating the physiology and ecology of coral-microbe interactions"
>  
> Allen
>
>
> ABSTRACT
> Metagenomic pyrosequencing is an emerging field that has so far been used only to describe uncultured microbial communities. With a reduction in cost and advancements in bioinformatic techniques, however, metagenomic pyrosequencing can be used for empirical hypothesis testing as well. The coral holobiont is the consortia of metazoans, protists, and microbes that are found on and within each species of Corals. These communities have been shown to be unique to each species of coral such 
> that the resident microbes present are independent of time or space. Furthermore, disruptions in this associate have been correlated with coral demise, disease, and death.  Due to the degradation of coral reefs around the world, investigations into how these microbial communities change in response to climate change are pertinent for coral reef conservation. We exposed /Porites compressa /corals to four environmental conditions known and hypothesized to reduce coral abundance, specifically: increased temperature, elevated nutrients, dissolved organic carbon loading, and reduced pH. Bacterial and viral metagenomic samples were collected across 64 hours of treatment and compared and contrasted using 454 Life Sciences pyrosequencing.  These meta-datasets reveal that the bacterial, phage, and  eukaryotic viral communities associated with corals, change dramatically in response to all treatments, including human manipulations (control).  Also, all treated samples showed a significant shift in the number of the pathogenic and stress resistant genes associated with the exposed corals.  Of special interest, is the change in herpes-like viruses (HLVs). These datasets showed broad coverage across several HLV genomes; the exception was the out-group sample taken directly from the
> environment which only had hits to direct and inverted repeat sections of the same genomes. These data indicate that corals may experience HLV lytic outbreaks in response to stress.   Overall, this study demonstrates for the first time that massively parallel pyrosequencing experiments can be used to empirically determine changes in microbial communities present in the environment, and that changing environmental conditions can have profound effects on coral associated microbes.
>
> GENERAL INFORMATION 
> Ecolunches are Thursdays, at 12:15 pm (Brown Bag Lunch) National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 735 State St., Suite 300, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Phone: (805) 892-2500
>
> A schedule of upcoming Ecolunch seminars is available on the web at:
> http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/fmt/doc?/nceas-web/center/local/ecolunch.html
>
> DIRECTIONS FROM UCSB BY BUS: You can get to NCEAS by taking the 11:40 a.m. bus (# 24x) from campus. From the transit center, walk one block east to State Street and two blocks south to the Balboa Building at 735 State Street. To return to campus, you can take the 1:30 p.m. bus (#24x) from the transit station and be back on campus by 1:49 p.m. Or you can take the 2:20 p.m. bus and arrive on campus at 2:39.
>
> BY CAR: take Highway 101 South. Once in Santa Barbara, exit on Carrillo Street. Turn left onto Carrillo. Drive 5 blocks and turn right on State Street. NCEAS is located on the right side at 735 State St., Suite 300. To Park: Drive past NCEAS on State Street and make your first right on Ortega Street. Drive 1 block and turn right on Chapala Street. Park in the underground Mall parking lot on your right. (First 75 minutes free). Once you are at the Balboa Building: We are on the third floor in the lounge area.
>
>
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