Invertebrate Zoology Lab

SJSU/MLML invertebrate zoologist Dr. Jonathan Geller retires after 23 years of service

Lauren Cooley

Please join us in wishing SJSU/MLML Professor Jonathan Geller a happy retirement!

Friday, October 1st was Dr. Geller’s last day on the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories faculty after 23 years of service to the labs and San José State University. Dr. Geller first came to MLML in 1998 as an Associate Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2005. He served as the MLML Department Chair from 2011 to 2015. Under Dr. Geller’s leadership, students and researchers in the Invertebrate Zoology & Molecular Ecology Lab used genetic techniques to study the evolutionary ecology of marine invertebrates. Dr. Geller looks forward to continuing with this research as a Professor Emeritus. Congratulations on your retirement, Dr. Geller!

 

Thesis Defense by Amanda Heidt-June 5th

Mina Sattari

Spatial characterization of meiofaunal community diversity along the California coast and potential abiotic drivers

A Thesis Defense by Amanda Heidt

Invertebrate Molecular Ecology Lab

Wednesday, June 5th, 2019 at 4 pm

MLML Seminar Room

Amanda is a master's student under Dr. Jonathan Geller in the Invertebrate Molecular Ecology Lab. Prior to her time at Moss Landing, she graduated with a B.S. in Marine Biology and a minor in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an A.A. in University Studies from MiraCosta Community College. Throughout her academic career, Amanda has worked for the Monterey Bay Aquarium as an animal husbandry technician in the Drifters Gallery, the aquarium's collection of local Cnidarian species, in addition to being a field technician for the Sea Otter Research and Conservation (SORAC) team. She has also logged several hundred dives as a Scientific Diver and PADI DiveMaster. Since coming to Moss Landing, she has worked as a laboratory technician processing samples for next-generation sequencing and has fortunately been able to travel to Hawaii, Baja, and Chile to conduct research. Going forward, Amanda will be entering the Science Communication Master's Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the fall of 2019 to further her keen interest in communicating science to various audiences. In addition to managing the Moss Landing student blog The Drop-In and working for the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions as an Education Programs Assistant and Communications Intern, she recently completed a Science Communication Fellowship with KQED, where she wrote articles for Science News and helped produce episodes of the award-winning 4k YouTube series Deep Look. For more info, you can visit her website.

Thesis Abstract:

Due to their small size and taxonomic obscurity, meiofauna remain a fundamentally understudied group  despite their important position at the base of the sandy-beach food web and close association with the surrounding environs. This study aims to characterize meiofaunal community diversity in California across various spatial scales using next generation sequencing techniques and to assign potential abiotic drivers through the analysis of sediment samples using grain size analysis and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) for mineral composition. Hypotheses suggest that (1) meiofauna will adhere to patterns established by the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) and known biogeographic breaks such as Point Conception, (2) meiofaunal communities will change as a function of beach profile (from reflective to dissipative), (3) meiofaunal communities will differ based on their tidal orientation (low-medium-high), and (4) communities will change based on sediment characteristics such as grain size and mineral composition. Analysis of this dataset continues, but preliminary results have found that communities tend to be more diverse in the southern sites (in keeping with the LDG), that significant differences in community composition exist as a function of tidal height, and that sediments vary significantly between sites with respect to mineral composition and grain size analysis. Ultimately, the results of this study will provide a detailed description of meiofaunal composition and abundance along a highly variable and biodiverse coastline and help to bolster meiofaunal sequence representation in molecular databases.

Invertebrate Zoology Lab Member, Amanda Heidt, is this year’s KQED-CSUMB Fuhs Science Communication Fellow

Kimberly Elson

MLML congratulates Invertebrate Zoology lab student Amanda Heidt! Amanda was selected as the 2018 KQED-CSUMB Fuhs Science Communication Fellow. The Fuhs Family Foundation has provided funding for a one year $10,000 scholarship and a paid summer internship in science communication at KQED Public Media in San Francisco. Amanda is splitting her time between researching and developing story lines for the Emmy-award winning short video series Deep Look as well as writing stories for KQED’s Science News team. She is excited to learn more about new ways to engage people with science across different media platforms.

About KQED Science: KQED Science brings you award-winning science and environment coverage from the Bay Area and beyond. KQED Science is the largest multimedia science and environment journalism and education unit in Northern California. They aim to explore pressing science and environment news, trends and events from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond with its award-winning, multimedia reporting on television, radio and the Web. KQED Science also produces educator resources and actively engages in community outreach around science and environment issues.

You can track her progress by following her on Twitter and Instagram @Scatter_Cushion.

Announcing MLML’s New Invertebrate Zoologist: Dr. Amanda Kahn!

Kimberly Elson

MLML is excited to welcome a new Invertebrate Zoology faculty member: Dr. Amanda Kahn.  She will be starting her Assistant Faculty position in Fall of 2019, and likely will be conducting postdoctoral research at MBARI during this next year.

Amanda studied biology and environmental chemistry as an undergraduate at CSU East Bay, then received her MSc in Marine Science here at MLML (through CSUMB) under the guidance of Dr. Jon Geller.  She received her PhD in Ecology, supervised by Dr. Sally Leys, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where she is currently a postdoctoral researcher.

Amanda’s research broadly focuses on movement of food energy (carbon) within and between ecosystems and on how suspension feeders facilitate this movement – especially in food-poor ecosystems.  Her doctoral and postdoctoral work have specifically focused on carbon flow mediated by sponges in the food-poor deep waters of the North Pacific and Atlantic.

 

Thesis Defense by Martin Guo – November 30th, 2017

Kimberly Elson

Metabarcoding analyses on red abalone (Haliotis rufescens) gut microfloral compositions under different macroalgal diets

A Thesis Defense by Martin Guo

Invertebrate Zoology Lab

Thursday, November 30th, 2017 at 12pm

MLML Seminar Room

Martin Guo came to the United States in 2006 from China and went to high schools in Kentucky and California. He received his bachelor's degree in marine biology at Hawaii Pacific University where he has worked in the Chemical Oceanography Lab at Oceanic Institute and volunteered at UH Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology to learn some basic molecular biology techniques. He joined the MLML community in 2013 and has worked under Dr. Geller's California Non-indigenous Invertebrates Survey (CalNIS) project in the Invertebrate Zoology Lab since then. In addition to the academic aspects of his life, he likes to watch and play soccer, and FC Barcelona is his favorite club team.

Thesis Abstract:

Red abalone (Haliotis rufescens) gut microfloral compositions and growth were investigated and compared under a feeding experiment from May to October in 2016 at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. The treatments were starvation and fresh macroalgal diets (Macrocystis pyrifera, Palmaria mollis, and Ulva lectuca). Abalone shell length (SL in cm) and wet in-shell mass (g) were measured for growth comparisons across treatments. In addition, gut samples at buccal cavity, intestine, and stomach as well as seawater and macroalgal diet tissue samples were also collected monthly for 16S rRNA Illumina MiSeq sequencing. Red abalone SL did not have a significant change over the entire feeding experiment, but their wet in-shell mass increased significantly as the red macroalgae fed animals were heavier than the other 2 diet treatments since September 2016 (one-way ANOVA test, F(2,12)=6.4, p=0.013). Furthermore, the metabarcoding assay has detected 17981 unique operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from all samples. Gut microflorall composition was significantly different across treatments at class (PERMANOVA test, F(3,211)=8.55, p=0.001) and genus (PERMANOVA test, F(3,211)=8.44, p=0.001) levels at a rarefaction depth of 13065 OTUs per sample. Gut microfloral composition was also significantly different at the 3 gut regions at class (PERMANOVA test, F(2,212)=79.76, p=0.001) and genus (PERMANOVA test, F(2,212)=60.27, p=0.001) levels. Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Fusobacteria, and Cyanobacteria were dominant taxa in most of the samples. Moreover, SIMPER dissimilarity percentage analysis showed the gut microfloral composition between P. mollis-fed and M. pyrifera-fed, P. mollis-fed and Ulva. spp.-fed, and M. pyrifera-fed and U. spp.-fed abalones were respectively 39.76%, 40.15%, and 42.15% at phylum level. Microfloral composition between the stomach and intestine samples was more similar (36.53%) than between mouth and stomach samples (50.15%) and between mouth and intestine samples (48.68%) at phylum level. To date, this is the first study comparing gut microfloral compositions in red abalone under various macroalgal diets using Illumina sequencing technique. The gut microfloral metabarcoding results could be compared to that of other abalone species or other invertebrates. This work will enhance our understanding of the gut microfloral composition in red abalone which is essential for abalone farmers to support the production of quality juveniles for aquaculture and restoration purposes.

Thesis Defense by Jen Keliher – October 30th, 2017

Kimberly Elson

Microbial Metagenomes from Cryptofaunal Sponges and Ascidians from Moorea, French Polynesia

A Thesis Defense by Jen Keliher

Invertebrate Zoology and Molecular Ecology Lab

Monday, October 30th at 12pm

MLML Seminar Room

Jen’s thesis is investigating microbial metagenomes from cryptofaunal sponges and ascidians from Moorea, French Polynesia. She is interested in the role of microbes in affecting the health of coral reef invertebrates and how host-associations change in response to human-induced stressors. What excites her most about this research is broadening our understanding of how microbes are integrated in the larger reef system.
 
Jen is also interested in educational outreach and capacity-building in youth. She currently a Bilingual Education Specialist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium teaching preK-12 school programs and co-leading two middle school programs: Young Women in Science and the Student Oceanography Club. As part of Dr. Geller’s NSF Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) project, Jen is helping build capacity in students involved in the US-Indonesian partnership by having helped with the 2013 Diversity Project class in Bali and by working with Indonesian students.
 
Jen received her B.S. in Marine Biology with a minor in Interdisciplinary studies from San Diego State University. As an undergraduate Jen worked on a diversity of projects including an endocrine study on Arctic bowhead whales, a genetic study on Mako and Thresher sharks, a behavioral ecology study on resident and transient killer whales, and other ecology projects in the wetland habitats of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and San Diego, California. She is an active member of MLML’s AAUS scientific dive program, volunteers much of her time in her faith community, and is a mentor for undergraduate students in the Enlace Program at Evergreen College in San Jose.