Floating styrofoam balls

Tiny pinkish bundles of sperm and egg aggregate on the surface of the ocean in cycles with the moon. Fish start a feeding frenzy. Marine biologists start a different frenzy - they don their headlights, lie on their bellies to look over the dock, or hop into a kayak with a scoop. 

I temporarily traded in my sea urchins to try my hand at manipulating corals. Its a lot harder to work with corals that only spawn when they want to and where they want to. So this adventure took me to Hawaii in this summer.

Injected embryo (FITC, green) next to uninjected embryos. The symbiotic algae are autofluorescent (red)

The corals were definitely a challenge. But miracles happened, and we developed techniques to inject them and even got some to settle.  Yeah.  

Next year will be even better.

Faces of the lab

The lab is now humming with a group of students and a 'borrowed' tech constantly in and out - checking out their larvae, snapping pictures on the microscope, and grooving to music playing on the '80s boombox we inherited from who knows who! Its great to see the empty shelves and benches filled with boxes, instruments, and PEOPLE.

Adam Christman, PIV technician, learning how to culture sea urchin larvae.

Angela Coccagna, undergraduate researcher, taking pictures of her experiments

Christian Diliberto, undergraduate researcher, getting ready to spawn the variegated sea urchin, Lytechinus variegatus

Ryan Buttone, work study and undergraduate researcher, watching cells divide.

Ocean Sciences

I admit I feel a bit guilty being in Hawaii while my students and family are still battling with old man winter in New Jersey.... and it seems like old man winter is winning.

About half of IMCS building (probably more) hopped on the 11 hour non-stop flight from Newark to Honolulu to meet, greet, eat, and present at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting. A gathering of over 5,000 ocean scientists to share their research and ideas.

There are a lot of white men with beards in Hawaiian shirts!! But, I'm also pleased to see increasing diversity and gender balance.

The ASLO Minority Program (http://aslo.org/mas/) has brought some of the best and brightest minority students to Ocean Sciences and ASLO meetings for decades. The program seems to be thriving at Ocean Sciences this year. It could be the desire to go to Hawaii was appealing, but I'd like to believe that there are more students than ever interested in and pursuing ocean science careers. Over a decade ago, I was one of those undergraduates attending a scientific meeting for the first time. Now I'm on the other side... trying to recruit some of them to join my lab. Isn't life grand!

Aloha from Hawaii!

New Faces

There are new faces in the lab for the Spring Semester. We welcome two new undergraduates, Angela Coccagna (Class of 2015, Marine Science & Sociology) and Christian Diliberto (Class of 2015, Biological Sciences and Marine Science)! Angela will be working on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. Christian will be diving into the world of transcriptomics to identify genes that are involved in the phenotypic plasticity mechanism. Adam Christman is also joining us as a technician for the semester throwing our larvae into turbulence. Full introductions and pictures to come.

We also have new urchins in the lab to play with from the tropics to the frigid north.

Lytechinus variegatus variegatus, the variegated urchin (Florida Keys, Fla)

Lytechinus pictus, the painted urchin (Goleta, Cali)

Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis, the green urchin (Cape Cod, Mass)

Website

The lab has an official website! Check it out: http://adams.marine.rutgers.edu/
Lab name is still pending vote by the students in the lab. We have two new undergraduates joining the lab this semester. Let the science begin!

Spring Semester starts with a blast

Between holidays and winter break, its been lonely and quiet on the Rutgers' campuses the past few weeks. The cold, snowy blast delivered by Winter Storm Janus ushered in 'Spring'. The first day of the spring semester was called off early and the second day started late. Today is the first full day of 'Spring' topping out at 18 degrees F. Welcome back!

While I'm excited to have everyone back, the quiet and break was nice - we enjoyed sledding in the snow; family came to visit from California; I submitted my first preproposal (ever) to NSF Integrative Organismal Systems Division; and we got in two new species of sea urchins in from the Florida Keys - Lytechinus variegatus and Arbacia punctulata. Both of these species are successful across a large geographic range - are there local adaptations? Does development change in response to the environment? So many questions about how they can thrive under such variable conditions.

(c) Florida Museum of Natural History, Arbacia punctulata

A. punctulata is found along the Western Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to Cuba and throughout the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. They are found in shallow water with rocky, sandy or shelly bottoms.

L. variegatus is also found along the US eastern seaboard from North Carolina around Florida into the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. However, L. variegatus prefers sea grass beds.

Whats in a NAME? Part II

Here are some suggestions that have been put forth. Chuckle, giggle and then vote in the poll to the right! Additional suggestions are still welcome.

MEDDLe Lab      Marine Ecology, Dispersal and Development of Larvae

LED Lab              Larval Ecology and Development

ILE Lab                Integrated Larval Ecology

MADD Lab          Marine Adaptation, Dispersal and Development

MEDDLe Lab      Molecular Ecology, Dispersal and Development of Larvae

DevEL Lab           Development and Ecology of Larvae

DADS Lab           Disperal and Development in the Sea

LEAD Lab            Larval Ecology and Development

La Da Dee            Larval Dispersal and Developmental Ecology

Back to the East Pacific Rise

The office is pretty quiet right now - between people just starting to trickle in from the holidays and the local mass exodus to the East Pacific Rise. I don't get to go back this time - to my tromping grounds as a graduate

(c) WHOI

student - but my office neighbor, his students and postdoc have just arrived. 'Dark Life at Deep-Sea Vents'. As the expedition name suggests, they will be focused primarily on life at vents... but not the life I usually study. You have to go smaller than even my tiny larvae, to the microbes - the core of the ecosystem there. The microbes convert the chemicals to the energy that fuels the abundant oases of life at vents.

Join Dive and Discover Expedition 15 here:
http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/

What's in a NAME?

In preparation for my official lab website, I have to come up with a name. And no offense to my husband - Adams Lab isn't currently cutting it - too generic.

I am unfortunately NOT gifted with the ability to make catchy acronyms for projects, etc. Here are some possible words that could go in the lab name:

Larvae/Larval
Ecology
Molecular Ecology
Evolution
Dispersal
Development
Adaptation
Marine
Ocean
Lab
Adams

PLEASE help me come up with something cleaver! Put your suggestions in the comments.
Thanks for your help!

First Culture

A historic event in the Adams Larval Ecology and Development Lab - we made our first larval culture!

We had to borrow beg and steal to get some of the supplies (note the shelves waiting to be filled) but we scrounged enough to spawn two sand dollars, Dendraster... mix their eggs and sperm together... and voila our first LARVAE!

Rutgers undergraduate, Ryan Buttone, transferring the culture.

Ryan at the microscope marveling at watching embryonic development before his eyes.

Dendraster pluteus under DIC transmitted light.