An enthusiastic, self-motivated, reliable and hard working person. Since young, she has always been interested in the marine life and coral reefs environment. Her bachelor in Biological science gave her a broad approach to all biology fields. She enrolled at JCU to complete her Master degree on Marine Biology. She is able to work in a team environment as well as her own and be independent.

Investigation of genetic bottleneck during coral development in different rearing conditions (CRIBS versus on vessel tanks)

2022 to 2023

Project Description

Artificial coral breeding has been increasingly trailed to maintain reef coral populations that face imminent environmental stressors. Standing genetic variation of corals plays a crucial role in the coral resilience, but genetic diversity of corals produced in artificial breeding and what factors influence it remains understudied. This project will assess genetic diversity of larval populations reared in different conditions, namely floating Coral Rearing Insitu Basins (CRIBs) vs. onboard culture tanks, during early coral development when high mortality is typical. Whether these different environmental conditions pose specific selective pressures will be investigated in this study via a genotype-by-sequencing approach to individual coral larvae. Sequencing data will be compared among coral populations representing different treatments and time-points, and against parental corals. Samples for sequencing be prepared at AIMS (and outsourced to DArT-seq). Bioinformatics and statistical analyses will be applied to resulting data.

Project Importance

Investigating if and how the genetic of larvae reared in laboratory and controlled conditions have different survival rate than larvae reared in sub-natural conditions

Project Methods

genotype-by-sequencing approach

Project Results

If no differences are recorded, there is no need to take into account the genetic aspect in the rearing of coral larvae in laboratory for a later settling in the natural seawater. If genetic plays a role in the selection of coral larvae that differs between the two conditions, then there is the need to include this aspect to increase the survival success of coral larvae.

Keywords

Climate change,
Controlled Environment,
Coral reefs,
Corals,
Ecology,
Field based,
Genetics,
Mariculture,
Ocean acidification,
Ocean warming