Methodological recommendations for assessing scleractinian and octocoral recruitment to settlement tiles.

Quantifying recruitment of corals is important for evaluating their capacity to recover after disturbances through natural processes, yet measuring recruitment rates is challenging due to the minute size of the study organism and the complexity of benthic communities. Settlement tiles are widely used in studies of coral recruitment because they can be viewed under a microscope to enhance accuracy, but methodological choices such as the rugosity of tiles used and when and how to scan tiles for recruits post-collection may cause inconsistencies in measured recruitment rates. We deployed 2,880 tiles with matching rugosity on top and bottom surfaces to 30 sites along the Florida Reef Tract for year-long saturations during a three year study.

Pharmacological inhibition of Rho-kinase signaling with Y-27632 blocks melanoma tumor growth.

Primarily through in vitro studies, the Rho-family of small GTPases and their effector proteins have been implicated in mediating oncogenic properties of cancer cells. We sought to determine if pharmacological inhibition of the RhoA effector proteins known as Rho-kinases (ROCK) with the small molecule inhibitor Y-27632 could inhibit melanoma in vitro and in vivo. We demonstrate that Y-27632 treatment of a panel of melanoma cells alters cellular morphology leading to spindly cells with decreased lamellipodia and increased filopodia formation.

Climate change, coral reef ecosystems, and management options for marine protected areas.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) provide place-based management of marine ecosystems through various degrees and types of protective actions. Habitats such as coral reefs are especially susceptible to degradation resulting from climate change, as evidenced by mass bleaching events over the past two decades. Marine ecosystems are being altered by direct effects of climate change including ocean warming, ocean acidification, rising sea level, changing circulation patterns, increasing severity of storms, and changing freshwater influxes.

Latitudinal variation in spongivorous fishes and the effectiveness of sponge chemical defenses.

It has been proposed that predation pressure declines with increasing latitude and a positive correlation exists between predation intensity and the investment into chemical defenses. However, little direct evidence supports the idea that tropical species are better defended chemically than their temperate counterparts. Temperate reefs of the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) off Georgia, USA, provide a unique opportunity to study tropical sponges in a temperate environment.

Development of a coral cDNA array to examine gene expression profiles in Montastraea faveolata exposed to environmental stress.

The development of a cDNA array of coral genes and its application to investigate changes in coral gene expression associated with stressful conditions is described. The array includes both well-characterized and previously unidentified coral genes from Acropora cervicornis and Montastraea faveolata. Corals were exposed to either natural or anthropogenic stressors to elicit the expression of stress genes for isolation and incorporation onto the array.