Zoanthid Histology

I uploaded some histology of a new zoanthid for collaborators in Japan to look at. Flickr is a great tool for sharing images and now I've found a work-related use for it! I don't have anything labeled but the descriptions for each image tell you what it is. The blue globby things are forams. Zoanthids are known to incorporate sand and sediment into their body wall to make them more rigid. As you can see from some of the cross sections, the mesenteries have very weak musclature. The staining protocol I used is called Masson's trichrome. Red stains for acidic tissues, like muscle fibers, while blue stains for basic tissues, such as connective tissue.

Nudibranchs, Coral and Math

A TED talk on one of my favorite invertebrate outreach projects out there. A favorite because it is viral, involves textiles and it's working! Thousands of participants have gotten involved in the project and come away with a far greater understanding of the issues facing our reefs.

Bamboo Hunting

I know, it's an older video, but I don't ever get tired of seeing deep sea corals, sue me!

This is the video of a new species of Isidella bamboo coral, Isidella tentaculum (thank Peter!), filmed by the Alvin submersible on Gulf of Alaska Seamount peaks 700-1200 m deep in the Northeast Pacific 2004.

Apple giving some Coral Love

Trying out the new Safari 4 from apple and I noticed at the top of the Apple Startpage a news item for:


Inverts in iTunes...Cool!

Monitoring the health of coral reefs on iTunes U
February 27, 2009
Dr. John Turner, an endocrinologist at the University of Toledo, has been studying the health of coral reef ecosystems, since 1997. “Reef Monitor…

I haven't had much of a chance to look at it yet, (saving it for the flight down to Ft. Lauderdale), but it looks like a nice outreach product on Coral Reef impacts and health monitoring by Reef Monitor and endocrinologist John Turner out of the University of Toledo. Collecting fish poop to help monitor and protect the cnidarians. Cool.

Is there anywhere that collects all the ocean related podcasts and iTunes resources? Invertebrates?

If you know of an audio/video podcast for either leave a comment.

Coral Larvae Ph.D.

If this is your idea of an extremely cute baby picture? Then this position announcement is probably for you!

Interested in coral larvae and their recruitment including ecology,coral-algal interactions and population dynamics? Want to do a Ph.D. in the subject?

The Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology in Bremen, Germany may have just the opening for you. They have posted an opening for a Ph.D. student to study and quantify the effects of benthic algae on coral recovery and related issues. The work will involve a lot of lab and field experiments, including rough field locations in the tropics and horribly boring tropical reef diving with 10-30 meter visibility. (What is the point of that?!)

Note this is my interpretation of tropical reef diving from Roatan, Honduras. This may not match the Leibniz Center interpretation. Caveat emptor and all that.

They're looking for a recent recipient of a Masters or Diploma degree in marine sciences, preferably with experience in coral reef ecology or marine botany, that has tropical fieldwork and scientific diving experience. English communication is a must, as is the ability to work independently in an interdisciplinary research environment.

Applications are being accepted through March 31st. You know the routine: cover letter with research interests & experience, complete CV, and the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of two referees. Submit it all as a single pdf file to maggy (dot) nugues (at) zmt-bremen (dot) de.

Coral Bones

In case you missed the big news, Peter from Deep Sea News has the discoverer's take on the publishing of the paper on "his coral." It is a beautiful specimen to say the least!

The Nobel Jelly - Aequorea victoria

Ok, it a stretch, but this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists, Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien, for their "discovery, expression and development" of green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, providing scientists with a high resolution molecular level marker to track both inter and intra cellular processes. GFP has revolutionized scientist's ability to track cell division, gene expression, protein interactions, chromosome replication, transport pathways, organelle inheritance and more. GFP has also been used to create sensors which can be read from within living cells, reporting pH values and ion concentrations. All this coming from a sweet little protein first observed in a jellyfish.


You may ask "What's so special about GFP that makes it different from other fluorescent compounds?"
What's really cool, and what makes GFP so useful as a marker is that it needs no other compounds or structures to cause its fluorescence. The chromophore is formed spontaneously from the structure of the protein and it only requires oxygen fluoresce. This means that the protein by itself can be placed into any organism and it will maintain it's fluorescent properties when it is expressed. The protein is also non-toxic and has been expressed in many organisms with no or minor physiological effects on the organism. The gene for GFP can also be combined with genes for proteins scientists want to study. This doesn't change the study protein's normal activity, yet the GFP remains fluorescent so the protein can be tracked by its fluorescence signature (400nm excitation peak -> sharp peak 505nm emission).


While the original GFP comes from the jellies, GFP-like proteins have been found in other cnidarians, primarily in the corals (anthozoa), allowing GFP monitoring with a range of spectral signatures to be used like with the red glowing cat below!


As a note one of the recipients, Osamu Shimomura, worked extensively on Cypridina ostracods, one of several bioluminescent ostracods. However they are not molluscs, contrary to what is in the Nobel Prize report (pdf).

New Species from Australian Reefs

You probably saw all the posts about the new species found on and in the Australian reefs from the recent Census of Marine Life efforts there.

The video of Heron Island sampling at the CoML website is a great watch, good invert sampling in the last half of the video.

A second video from New Tang Dynasty Television is available on YouTube which actually does a decent job of reporting on the discoveries, including showing a good photo of the tongue eating isopods (outside of their hosts).

Saturday Morning Funnies - Sunday Invert Lineup

It actually was linked to from one of the stories on Steve O'Shea... so...



and in related news...

Next Sunday (August 31st) looks to be an Ocean and Invert bonanza on the Discovery Channel.

It starts off at 3pm with all 4 hours of the Blue Planet.
At 7pm we start up three marine invert hours of fun with the Killer Jellyfish! The story about the search for the Irukandji

At 8pm comes "Giant Squid, Caught on Camera" from dives in the Gulf of California, and the night is capped off at 9pm by....

Colossal Squid - the show on the capture, transport and examination of the colossal squid dissected earlier this spring.

of course check local listings blah blah blah...

For one day in August I wish I actually had TV considering I won't be able to get outside much that weekend.

Lions Mane & Mesoglea

A small (bell diameter ~ 8-9cm) Lions mane jelly (Cyanea capillata) from our trip to the beach today. We have seen quite a few of these in the estuary and at the beaches this year, not sure if more or less than last year though. Near this one were two more small jellies along with one mesoglea. Possibly the perfect ingredient for jelly burgers... they are inert, flavorless and probably have little caloric value.



Classification of the Lion's Mane Jelly

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Cnidaria

Class

Scyphozoa

Order

Semaeostomeae

Family

Cyaneidae

Genus

Cyanea

Species

Cyanea capillata (Linnaeus, 1758)

Reefs in Trouble - But it's not too late!

This week has been the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium and I'm sure the threats to coral reefs have been on everyone's minds down in Florida, even as a new report was published online in Science Express on Thursday assessing coral status using IUCN data. The report concludes that fully one third (231 of 704) of hermatypic coral species with data available are threatened (IUCN Red Listed as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered). Adding in the 141 near threatened species and over half are under pressure. A dramatic increase since 1998 when it was only 13 species as Threatened and 20 listed as Near Threatened.

Of course that analysis may seem a quite bleak, but Rick MacPherson has been bloggin the Symposium, and he want's to make sure the message from the symposium gets out:

Yes, coral reefs are in trouble. But it's not too late to make a difference. That's the consensus of coral reef scientists and conservations at this week's 11th International Coral Reef Symposium. It begins with spreading this message.

Be sure and grab one of the excellent banners from the Coral Reef Alliance and spread the word. (Notice on our sidebar that they have them with or WITHOUT the boney critters in the way!)

How Did Jellies Get Human Genes? The Redux

Last year I posted on the anemone genome paper and dissuaded the creationist claim of "Where did sea anemones get human genes". Yes, I know dear reader that it actually argues for common descent. Even if phrased incorrectly.

Ed Yong, of the fabulous Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, explains new research on shared opsins, proteins involved in eye sight, between vertebrates and box jellies.

"Jellyfish may seem like simple blobs of goo, but some are surprisingly sophisticated. The box jellyfish (Tripedelia cystophora), for example, is a fast and active hunter and stalks its prey with the aid of 24 fully functioning eyes. These are grouped into four clusters called rhopalia, which lie on each side of its cube-like body. Together, they give the box jellyfish a complete 360 degree view of its world and make it highly maneuverable.

Each eye cluster, four eyes are merely pits containing light-sensitive pigments, but two are remarkably advanced and carry their own lenses, retinas and corneas. The lenses are good enough to produce images that are free of distortion and even though the views are blurrier than those we see, these complex 'camera-type' eyes are very similar to those of more advanced animals like ourselves and other vertebrates.

But these similarities extend to a more fundamental level. Even though jellyfish are the most ancient group of animals to have a well developed visual system, it turns out that their eyes are built with many of the same genetic building blocks that ours are."

Go read his post and decide if its parallel evolution or conserved.

It's CORAL WEEK at Deep Sea News!

Its finally Coral Week at Deep Sea News! Its only been 2 days and its already chock full of awesome coraliscious articles, history, biblical references, videos and pictures. Make sure you bookmark DSN this week and head over there everyday this week to read about everyones favorite reef-builder. Articles are written by the 3 stooges of Deep Sea News, but each day brings guest articles by professionals in the field of deep-sea coral research.

Lophelia pertusa (white parts are the actively growing region) with the crab Eumunida picta. Photo courtesy of C. Fisher.

Blogging Without Backbone

Hello, World!

I wish to thank Kevin for taking this chance on adding me to The Other 95% and I will be careful. He assed me to keep the cussin' down, and I think I can cooperate on the occasions I contribute here. Sure.

My main blog is at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, and Kevin has been good enough to give me some positive feedback when I have written about those fauna who don't need no steenking backbone. I have been talking to Greg Laden about finishing up my degree the University of Minnesota with non-traditional program based on science writing and science journalism. This will be my practice site, and I hope to be treated mercilessly.

Just so you can get a sampling on what I have done I'll link to one of my favorite posts from Tangled Up in Blue Guy, "Lighting the Phylogenetic Tree." Heres's an excerpt:

We are naturally anthropomorphic and anthropocentric. In the Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins refers to the biological arms race as an analogy to demonstrate one way in which natural selection works. It is not perfect, but the metaphor illustrates the point in a way that we can relate to our own societies and national struggles for survival. The angler jellyfish have survived for so long because they evolved a deceptive strategy that works, and keeps them ahead, at least for now, in the arms race.

And still, the question remains. What advantage does red luminescence afford the angler jellyfish? It may have something to do with what seems to be its preferred breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cyclothones are likely the most common vertebrate on the planet (sorry, anthropocentrics!) but the question remains on cyclothones as to why they would be among the few fish at that deep dark level to develop the ability to see red. They are hard to study because they are incredibly fragile and hard to capture without killing them. One possibility is that a form of chlorophyll which produces red coloration is quite common in the ocean, so the ability to see red poses a distinct feeding advantage for cyclothones.

Listen, I know that jellies aren't fish. I say "sea stars" when appropriate instead of starfish. I haven't figured out how to get comfortable with referring to jellyfish without conceding to the chordatist bias. I'll work on it.

Thanks again, Kevin!

Words of Wisdom from a Clownfish

h/t to S.A.L.-P.

Make Friends With an Anemone

Dorid Designs has added a new design to her repertoire, one that certainly makes me happy!

I'm heading over right to place my order. Go check out her store, the designs are brilliant!

Open Lab 2007

As many of you may know, Bora and Anton have been tirelessly working to get the 2007 edition of Open Lab out in time for the NC Science Blogging Conference. I had the honor and sincere pleasure of being of ~30 judges to assist in evaluating the 450+ posts jockeying to be considered the "best of '07" (as denoted by OL2007 judge badge on the right sidebar). In an interesting twist of fate, one of the nominees decided to pull out their post and my post on "anemones raising a tentacle in support of evolution" was chosen as the first runner-up (disclaimer: I did not evaluate my own submissions)! I am now flush with pride at taking part in this whole process, just knowing I was considered as a runner-up was an honor in itself. Go check out all the other winning entries at the Open Lab 2007 gala.

Tuesday Toon

Anthozoa Week at DSN and TO95

Hello there friends of the invertebrates! Over at Deep Sea News, Craig is out for a week so Peter has highjacked the blog and called for Anthozoa Week. Well, we're not going to let him do it all by himself! We'll bringing you news and views from the world of Anthozoa. What is Anthozoan? Glad you asked!

Anthozoa is a class of in the phylum Cnidaria that includes corals and anemones, characterized by no medusa stage (i.e. no jelly) in its life cycle. The word anthozoa means flower (antho-) animal (zoa). So sit back, relax and read an anthology of anthozoa this week here and at Deep Sea News!

What better way to start the week than to head over to Anthozoa.com and learn more about anthozoan biology and research! (Photo above is from Anthozoa.com copyright 2004 by Vreni Häussermann and Günter Försterra)

Ocean Sciences Meeting Abstract Accepted

My abstract for The Ocean Sciences Meeting was accepted for the Census of Marine Life (CoML) poster session. The meeting is one, if not the, biggest meetings for ocean scientists and I am honored to be a part of the CoML. The work I will be presenting was part of a taxonomic training award for new investigators (link has my final report in addition to information about the award for those interested) I received from CoML's Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Ecosystems project (ChEss). My abstract is posted below. If any readers are going to the meeting or in the Orlando area and want to meet up let me know!

NEW SPECIES OF ANEMONE AND ZOANTHID FROM HYDROTHERMAL VENTS AT THE EAST-LAU SPREADING CENTER AND GLOBAL VENT AND SEEP ANEMONE DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTION

K.A. Zelnio, E. Rodríguez, M. Daly, C.R. Fisher

Hydrothermal vents are deep-sea ecosystems rich in energy and bacterial primary production. Cnidaria are not abundant in the well-studied Atlantic or Eastern Pacific vent communities. However they dominate some microhabitats on the East-Lau Spreading Center (ELSC). We report on six undescribed species of anemones (including one new genus) and a zoanthid from the ELSC. Three of the species of anemone are only found in areas exposed to hydrothermal flow, and will occasionally colonize the shells of mussels that require exposure to hydrothermal fluid to support their chemoautotrophic symbionts. Two of the other species are only present in areas isolated from direct exposure to hydrothermal fluid and the sixth is occasionally found in both peripheral areas and near to sources of hydrothermal flow. The zoanthid is the first to be reported from a hydrothermal vent and forms dense aggregations on basalt in areas of weak hydrothermal flow. The diversity of Cnidaria in this western Pacific back-arc basin is considered in the context of anemone and zoanthid diversity, distribution and habitat use at hydrothermal vents, methane seeps and whale falls.

More cnidarians than you can shake a manipulator arm at! Photo copyright C.R. Fisher/Ridge2000.