无忧视频

Collaborative Coral Research Funded by NSF

The National Science Foundation has awarded 无忧视频 Department of Biology Chair Cathy McFadden a $494,481 collaborative grant with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to study how environmental conditions in the distant past may have affected the evolutionary development of corals and sea anemones鈥攔esearch that will help shed light on how current climate change endangers coral reefs and the rich sea life they support.

鈥淥ne of the big worries about corals right now is ocean acidification,鈥� McFadden explained. 鈥淚ncreasing amounts of CO₂ in the atmosphere dissolve into sea water, creating carbonic acid. Under acidic conditions, it鈥檚 more difficult for corals to produce their skeletons.鈥�

Corals build skeletons in many different ways, McFadden explained. Some corals don鈥檛 have any skeleton; others have crystals of calcium carbonate in the tissue that make them stiff, and still others have massive calcium carbonate structures that form beautiful, colorful reefs both in shallow water and the deep sea.

鈥淥ne of our main goals is to figure out how these groups with very different types of skeletons are related to one another,鈥� McFadden said. 鈥淲hich groups evolved from others and in what order, and at what point in the past. In particular, we want to know whether the evolution of a particular type of skeleton, or the loss of a skeleton, correlated with past environmental conditions.鈥�

Understanding these evolutionary relationships has proven difficult for scientists so far, because corals and sea anemones belong to one of the oldest groups of multicellular animals, believed to have evolved over 600 million years ago.

Professor Cathy McFadden

McFadden and her collaborator at the AMNH, Estefania Rodr铆guez, hope that by using a new technology鈥攚hole genome sequencing鈥攖hey can construct a time-calibrated evolutionary tree for corals and sea anemones and map gains and losses of skeletal traits to corresponding environmental conditions. The information gained could help inform predictions about the effects of current and future environmental changes on coral reefs.

The grant will also support valuable educational opportunities for students at Harvey Mudd and the City University of New York鈥檚 College of Technology (City Tech).

鈥淲e will be involving Harvey Mudd and City Tech students in research that uses really cutting-edge, next-generation genome sequencing,鈥� McFadden said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a great opportunity for students to pursue and experience research projects that are at the forefront of scientific discovery.鈥�

Harvey Mudd students will also participate in summer research exchanges at the American Museum of Natural History.

鈥淏eing able to send students to the AMNH for the summer will put them in a totally different research environment than we have here,鈥� said McFadden. 鈥淢useums are amazing places for doing biodiversity research. Students will see a really different side of research science.鈥�

City Tech, a predominantly minority-serving technical institution, will send students to Harvey Mudd to do summer research in McFadden鈥檚 lab. They will be paired with Harvey Mudd students on projects.

鈥淭his may be the first and only research experience that students from City Tech will get, as the institution does not have a research focus,鈥� said McFadden. 鈥淲e think partnering students with different educational and probably cultural backgrounds will be an advantage to students coming from both institutions.鈥�

The grant will also support a new postdoctoral fellow at Harvey Mudd鈥攁 marine biologist who will teach, supervise student researchers and conduct research in McFadden鈥檚 lab over the next three years.

McFadden and collaborator Rodr铆guez will also use the grant to support public outreach efforts. The team will use information gained in the study to develop educational materials in both English and Spanish for elementary school children and preschoolers for the AMNH鈥檚 active outreach programs. The materials will be geared toward educating children about environmental concerns and diversity in the oceans.