Selection of sites for egg deposition by marine snails and the consequences for rates of mortality and development. Field and lab studies will focus on marine snails in the genus Lacuna because of preliminary observations on interspecific differ ences in deposition sites. Reading, discussion, and a few lectures will place this research in the context of current hypotheses on the evolution of complex life histories of marine animals. For additional information, contact rrstrath@u.washington.edu.
This undergraduate research course will link study of diversity of marine animals in the vicinity of Friday Harbor with development of the FHL invertebrate reference collection. Participants will study the characteristics of the major invertebrate grou ps and the principles and practices of systematic biology. All students will learn techniques of collection and preservation of specimens, as well as observational methods such as light and scanning electron microscopy, and all will participate in discuss ions of current literature on ecological, evolutionary and applied issues in marine biodiversity. For the research project, each student will specialize on a particular invertebrate group, taking responsibility for study of its structural characteristics and biology, and for improving its representation in the collection. For further information contact akohn@u.washington.edu.
The research will consist of state-of-the-art cloning and sequencing methods with a focus on ways to study non-model species, and it will be supplemented by lectures/discussions on the diversity of multigene families and genetics systems in vertebrates and invertebrates. The team will clone and characterize a gene or genes involved in the immune response and/or development in invertebrates. The sequences identified will be aligned with previously discovered sequences from vertebrates and insects, to develop reasonable phylogenies.
Studies in the Marine Protected Areas of San Juan County on the biology of rocky nearshore fish species. Work will train students in the life histories, ecology, and fishery management practices underlying changes in nearshore fish populations. Experim ents in the field, laboratory, examination of historical management practices, and observations of local and state government programs will be used to evaluate hypotheses about population changes.
Students will learn methods of capture, transport and husbandry of marine fish (herring, sandlance, shiner perch, flatfish and sculpins) for the purpose of disease studies. The team will learn to grow and transfer cell cultures, collect and process tissues for virus and fungal assays and maintain sterile conditions for cell culture. Team members will learn antibody neutralization to identify fish viruses such as viral hemorrhagic septicema (VHSV) in cell culture, isolate virus from fish tissues, transfer virus from culture to culture under sterile conditions, and other techniques. They will then embark on independent work to search for latent pathogens in the tissues of previously unstudied fish populations to try to develop better knowledfge of their prevalence and distribution. VHSV and Icthyophonus hoferi are considered emergent fish diseases in the North Pacific and potentially very important to the recent Endangered Species Act designation of regional salmonids. VHSV caused death of 80% of the herring population in Price William Sound in 1993, with widespread and expensive consequences. Icthyophonus hoferi is believed to be responsible for the loss of spawning salmon as they encounter warmer waters.
Disturbance is one of the major factors influencing patterns at the ecosystem level. It disrupts the sequence of succession, creates heterogeneous land and seascapes, and promotes coexistence of organisms that might otherwise disappear. Increasingly, disturbance has an anthropogenic origin, and the sorts of disturbances that humans create often become conservation problems. A case in point is the release of oil into the marine environment. The Exxon Valdez oil spill and subsequent cleanup had devastating effects on much of the intertidal biota in southwestern Prince William Sound. In terms of plant cover, the species most seriously affected was Fucus gardneri, which occupied 50-100% of mid-intertidal rock surface prior to the spill and was essentially eliminated afterwards. This magnitude of change dwarfs the damage suggested for most other marine species (e.g. birds, marine mammals, fish) at least on a local scale. Although the initial damage to Fucus is undisputed, the pace of recovery has been more debatable. Some post-spill research found that biomass had recovered within a few years. Yet after other high-latitude spills, fucoid populations have oscillated for more than a decade. These data and discrepancies suggest a poor ability to predict recovery of Fucus, or even to understand the sorts of population structures and dynamics indicative of a cataclysmic disturbance. The objective of this research is to predict the time course of recovery of a dominant intertidal alga in the San Juan Islands after cataclysmic disturbance. Students will use oil spills as a touchstone to consider the ecological consequences of disturbance.
The team will design and conduct surveys of the abundance and distributuion of the life stages of species abundant or important to society and dilineate the spatial extent of exchange between critical habitats. This will involve the design of surveys of life history stages, by inferring the magnitude and direction of exchange between areas of high and low abundance from spatial patterns. This apprenticeship will focus on the larval and early juvenile stages. Each team will:
(a) Survey numbers and distribution of fish in their different life history stages. Different students / pairs will become expert in and responsible for different species. Each student / pair will characterize and map the nature and extent of critical habitat for the target fish assemblages.
(b) Design survey protocols to determine whether or not Marine Protected Area networks are achieving their intended purpose. Students will become actively involved with the San Juan County Marine Resource Committee and participate with citizens in priority-setting and outreach to the community to encourage citizen support for efforts to protect these declining fish populations.
(c) Evaluate the policy implications of instituting MPA networks of different extent, including constituencies that favor or oppose MPAs, barriers to effective implementation of enforcment issues, and related aspects, including evaluation of voluntary compliance.
Two teams will work in parallel as they review the theoretical models of mechanisms that may regulate development and morphogenesis in general, with special attention to Acetabularia. Cross-over between teams will be strongly encouraged. The two teams will meet conjointly for morning lectures and weekly lab meetings. Afternoon laboratories will meet separately.
Mandoli's team will research the development and morphogenesis of the giant unicellular tropica alga, Acetabularia. The team will focus on finding genes that are developmentally regulated and/or determine cell shape. The team will use expressed sequence tags (ESTs) to screen a cDNA library for genes that determine age and shape of this unicell. Teams will design their own screens for temporally expressed or spatially localized genes. To study the "original" mRNAs, team will begin to subclone and sequence gtenes on cDNAs of interest.
Odell's team will utilize computer image processing and mathematical models for understanding morphogenesis. Using laser scanning confocal microscopy, team members will visualize physical morphogenesis and the localization of mRNAs and possibly GFP-fusions in this large unicell. Students will have hands-on experience with semi-transparent 3-D computer reconstructions of cytoskeletal structure of cells from stacks of confocal images.
This team will work on an interdisciplinary project to link neuron-level and behavioral studies of brain mechanisms using implantable electrode/computer interfaces, designed with innovative electrical, and mechanical engineering technology. Our long term goal is to develop fundamentally new technology to implant computer electronics directly into brain. The team will work with the extraordinarily large, individually identifiable brain cells of marine organisms (especially nudibranch mollusks) as model systems, both in the laboratory and in the field.
Students will learn to use intracellular recording devices
in brain cells of nearly intact animals, to label neurons with
immunofluorescent dyes, observe functional differences between
neurons in laser scanning confocal microscopy, develop skills
in design of microelectromechanical devices (viz., microelectrodes)
etched onto silicon microchips, along with control circuitry and
memory to record long-term neurophysiological data from freely
behaving organisms in their natural environment.
This apprentice team will explore the evolutionary relationships of marine invertebrates by studying the mechanisms of developmental processes. All animals use a small set of developmental genes in order to go through embryogenesis and larval development. Phylogenetic analysis of marine invertebrates has shown that many traditional ideas of animal evolution are incorrect. This apprenticeship will entail working with diverse marine invertebrate phyla, looking at the evolutionary relationships of the species, isolating conserved developmental genes by PCR, and examining expression in embryos and/or larvae by in situ hybridization. The course will begin by focusing on development and evolution in the invertebrate deuterostomes, urochordates, hemichordates and echinoderms. Phylogenies will be constructed by analysis of genes already in the Genbank database, and in situ hybridization will be performed on previously fixed embryos with probes for known genes. Then, students will be encouraged to identify taxa in either the protostome ecdyzoa or lophotrochozoa groups and extract DNA from the organism. Important developmental genes, such as the Hox genes, will be isolated by PCR, and in situ hybridization will be performed on the embryos, if possible. Each student will learn the techniques of constructing phylogenies, isolating DNA, PCR, and in situ hybridization, whether or not their research project comes to fruition.
Lectures will be given three days a week, and a journal article will be discussed once a week on different Evo-Devo model systems. Apprentices will learn to collect and spawn marine invertebrates, watch embryos and larvae develop, and will learn how to use molecular methods to study the evolution of animal body plans.
Richard Kocan
Students will learn methods of capture, transport and husbandry of marine fish (herring, sandlance, shiner perch, flatfish, and sculpins) for the purpose of maintaining fish for disease studies. As a group, the team will learn to grow and transfer fish cell cultures, collect and process fish tissues for virus and fungal assays and maintain sterile conditions for cell culture. Team members will learn antibody neutralization to identify fish viruses such as viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHSV) in cell culture, isolate virus from fish tissues, transfer virus from culture to culture under sterile conditions, and other techniques. They will then embark on independent work to search for latent pathogens in the tissues of previously unstudied populations to try to develop better knowledge of their prevalence and distribution. VHSV and Ichthyophonus hoferi are considered emergent fish diseases in the North Pacific and potentially very important to the recent Endangered Species Act designation of regional salmonids. VHSV caused death in 80% of the herring population in Prince William Sound in 1993, with widespread and expensive consequences. Ichthyophonus hoferi is believed to be responsible for the loss of spawning salmon as they encounter warmer waters.
For Autumn Quarter, the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Friday Harbor Laboratories, is offering an exciting and unique program under the course designation Fish 492,12 credits, "Undergraduate Research Apprenticeships in Marine Fish Ecology".
This course will focus on gaining an understanding of how Marine
Protected Areas function for a variety of fish species with diverse
life histories, and will emphasize research to understand the
dispersal/retention of
late-larval and juvenile fishes at MPAs, and movements/migrations
of adult fishes. Students will also become actively involved with
the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee and will be engaged
in evaluating the policy implications of implementing MPA networks.
The opportunity for students to learn to do independent field
and lab research is the primary teaching objective of this course.
This apprentice team will investigate topics of direct interest to the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) but which involve social, economic and political aspects of decisions confronting the MRC. There could be group and individual projects but each would key off of questions before the MRC. The type of research projects envisioned are:
These will be tied closely to MPA designation and management activities and would involve direct contacts with members of the community and visitors/ managers/ property owners [an information session on DNR tideland trust dedication by owners]. Course work would involve study of MPA policy, design, and management issues and would include library and web-based research. School of Marine Affairs, Law School and other faculty resources will help teach appropriate aspects of the course and design the research on an ad hoc basis.
During this apprenticeship students will be introduced to the stomatogastric nervous system and to the techniques used to study this system. Students will be shown:
* how to wiretap nerve cells (using both intracellular and extracellular techniques) and decode their signals.
* how to image the distribution of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators (using immunocytochemistry and laser scanning confocal microscopy).
The team will use a variety of research approaches to test the hypothesis that the gas neuromodulators (NO and CO) play a key role during feeding in a variety of crustaceans. If students wish, other modulators will also be examined. Our primary goal will be to give everyone a diverse research experience. We also hope that the team will produce enough data to submit short scientific papers for publication. The team will divide into subgroups of one to three people to tackle specific parts of the project.
Ecosystem Analysis and Planning is an apprenticeship opportunity that will serve as a capstone learning experience for students from many disciplines and majors including, but not limited to, Landscape Architecture, Ecosystem Sciences, Geography and Program on the Environment. It offers students an exciting opportunity to engage, first hand, a beautiful and unique environment while they apply skills learned in University of Washington classrooms. This select, interdisciplinary team of advanced undergraduate research apprentices (eight students maximum) will engage in an integrated study of University of Washington's San Juan County properties. Apprentices will conduct the first phase of an ecological evaluation and management recommendations for the Friday Harbor Laboratory (FHL) Preserve, expand ongoing field study and management plan development for the University of Washington's Cedar Rock Biological Preserve on Shaw Island, and explore preserve management strategies on a global scale. Applicants will be considered for their expertise in one of the following areas: Environmental evaluation and analysis, GIS mapping skills, teamwork and interpersonal skills.
Four primary pedagogical strands comprise this apprenticeship.
They are applied field studies and analyses (6 units), independently
directed research (5 units), 'think sink' discussions and interpretive
documentation (4 units). The products generated by the student
team will provide the FHL administration with site information
that will be used for long range planning and ecosystem management
at Friday Harbor Laboratory Preserve and the Cedar Rock Biological
Preserve. We view this apprenticeship as the first phase of a
continued planning effort which will serve environmental management
needs while providing a unique learning opportunity for UW
students. Students will earn 15 academic credits for their participation
as apprentices. Enrollment limited to 8 students.
Dina Mandoli and Garry Odell will team up again to lead two
parallel teams to investigate the biology of a beautiful, giant
marine unicell. Mandoli and Odell bring their different expertise
to the course. Students pick one of 4 teams that will work on
the cell and developmental biology of the giant single-celled
alga, Acetabularia acetabulum, a marine model system. Topics will
include (tentatively) reproduction, and (c) cytoskeletal changes
and RNA localization during morphogenesis. Techniques will include
confocal microscopy and modern molecular genetics techniques.
Enrollment limited to 2 teams of 8 each.
Our recent discovery that polymers found in seawater can spontaneously assemble forming micron-sized gels (Chin et al Nature 1998) has introduced a new powerful paradigm that will fundamentally change the way oceanographers think about chemical, physical, and biological interactions of seawater organic macromolecules. The implications of these new observations range from modulation of metal ion chelation, to marine bacterial dynamics, and to carbon cycling and global climate change (Wells, Nature 1998). In this team students will test the hypothesis that marine microgels provide discrete niches of high marine biopolymer concentration that bacteria can readily colonize and degrade. Students will conduct a through review of the literature, and learn the theory and practice of the tools they will apply in their experiments. Using dynamic laser scattering spectroscopy, flow cytometry, and fluorescence microscopy, they will follow the assembly kinetics of marine biopolymers and the kinetics of bacterial colonization of marine microgels. They will formulate a mathematical model to formally describe these phenomena and will report their results in a manuscript. Enrollment limited to 8.
This apprentice team will investigate how Marine Protected Areas function for a variety of fish species with diverse life histories, and will emphasize research to understand the dispersal/retention of late-larval and juvenile fishes at MPAs, and movements/migrations of adult fishes. Students will also become actively involved with the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee and will be engaged in evaluating the policy implications of implementing MPA networks. The opportunity for students to learn to do independent field and lab research is the primary teaching objective of this course. If student demand is high, we will field two teams of eight students. Otherwise, we will field one team of eight students.
The central focus of our team is animal navigation. The sea
slug Tritonia diomedea, provides an excellent model for
exploring the neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms of orientation
and navigation. How does it find its way using water flow, odors,
and the earth's magnetic field? We already have considerable insight
into the how its brain controls behavior and team members will
extend knowledge in a variety of ways. Tritonia is the
only animal known in which identifiable neurons have been found
to respond to the earth's magnetic field. Yet neither their geomagnetic
sensory detector nor the adaptive significance of this ability
are understood. Tritonia also responds to water currents
and odors while navigating. These behaviors are better characterized,
but much of the neurobiological underpinnings still need to be
analyzed.
Team members will be able to focus on these behaviors at any level:
field behavioral recordings using time-lapse video, lab behavioral
trials under more controlled conditions, neural recordings of
behaving animals free to crawl in the laboratory, or strict neurobiological
experiments examining the brain circuitry used to control the
behaviors.
Some example projects could include (but are not limited to):
1. Field work in support of SCUBA team efforts to study the
animals' natural
behavioral patterns in the field, using time lapse video recordings.
2. Work in Y-mazes or open field experiments with artificially
controlled conditions, manipulating magnetic fields, water currents
or odor sources.
3. Extracellular recordings from freely crawling animals during
turning behaviors in response to different stimuli.
4. Immunofluorescent labeling studies using laser scanning confocal
microscopy to detect and localize neurons (and if lucky, the transducer
cells) involved in any of the pathways.
5. Analysis of the neural circuitry responsible for sensory motor
integration generally to learn how the brain uses information
about
geomagnetism, currents or odors to alter the locomotory rate and
direction of the animal.