WEBVTT
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Good evening.
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We're pleased to have you join us for our
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annual Seaside Chat Speaker series about
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ocean topics associated with Flower Garden Banks,
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National Marine Sanctuary, and the Gulf of Mexico.
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We're also part of
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the National Marine Sanctuary Webinar Series
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and the NOAA Science Seminar series.
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During the presentation,
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all attendees will be in listen only mode.
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You are welcome to type questions
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for the presenters into the question box at the bottom
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of the control panel on the right-hand side of your screen.
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You may also let us know about any technical issues
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you are having,
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and we'll be monitoring them and answering questions
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and technical issues as soon as we can.
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In addition, we encourage you to close all other programs
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you may have open on your computer
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or any non-webinar tabs on your internet browser.
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This will ensure the best viewing quality for the webinar.
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We are recording this session, and we'll post the recording
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to the National Marine Sanctuaries
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and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary websites
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within a few weeks.
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We'll notify registered participants via email
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when these recordings are available.
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And for those of you who are interested,
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we have a document of links to additional resources
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on today's topic, and this is available in the handout pane
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of the control panel.
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Simply click on this item to download it.
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My name is Kelly Drinnen,
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and I'm the Acting Education Coordinator
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for Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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I'll be facilitating today's webinar from Dickinson, Texas.
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Also with me today is Taylor Galaviz,
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our constituent engagement specialist.
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She'll be helping me with the back-end administration
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of this webinar.
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In 1972, the United States ushered in a new era
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of ocean conservation
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by creating the National Marine Sanctuary System.
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Since then, we've grown into a nationwide network
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of 15 national marine sanctuaries
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and two marine national monuments
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that conserve more than 620,000 square miles
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of spectacular ocean and Great Lakes waters,
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and that's an area nearly the size of Alaska.
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These marine protected areas
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are kind of like national parks, but underwater.
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The National Marine Sanctuaries Act gives NOAA the authority
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to designate special areas of the marine environment
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as national marine sanctuaries.
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It also mandates
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that the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
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conduct research, monitoring, resource protection,
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education, outreach, and management
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of America's underwater treasures
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in order to preserve them for future generations.
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In addition to being places for recreation and research,
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national marine sanctuaries are also living classrooms
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where people can see, touch, and learn
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about the nation's great lakes and ocean treasures.
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This webinar series is just one part
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of that national education and outreach effort.
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The Seaside Chats series is hosted
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by Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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the only national marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.
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This sanctuary consists of 17 banks
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or small underwater mountains
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that are home to some of the healthiest coral reefs
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in the world, amazing algal and sponge habitats,
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and deep reef habitats featuring an abundance
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of black corals and gorgonians.
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We invite you to learn more about us
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by visiting the sanctuary website at flowergarden.noaa.gov.
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Today's presentation focuses on unraveling the mystery
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of coral disease
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at Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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Just like any other animal, coral can get sick.
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Coral diseases can harm whole ecosystems
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when they spread across reefs.
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This became all too familiar in 2022 when a mystery disease
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appeared on the magnificent reefs of the sanctuary.
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We'll talk about what's been done
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to identify the mystery disease,
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how it may have arrived at the Flower Garden Banks,
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and how the reef responds to pathogens.
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Tonight, rather than one presenter, we have three,
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and they'll be explaining together
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their behind the scenes work chasing microbes.
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Our first presenter will be Laura Mydlarz.
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Dr. Mydlarz is a distinguished professor and researcher
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at the University of Texas at Arlington,
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specializing in the study of coral disease and immunity.
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She joined the faculty in 2006,
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and currently holds a position of professor of biology.
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Over the years, she has conducted extensive research
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of coral disease and immunity,
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with a particular focus on the impact
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of environmental stressors on coral health
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and the impact of emerging diseases on reefs.
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Her current research is dedicated
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to unraveling the mechanisms of immunity
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that underlie the varying disease susceptibilities
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among different coral species.
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Born and raised in Montreal, Canada,
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Laura developed a passion for marine biology at a young age,
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which led her to pursue a career in the field.
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She earned her undergraduate degree in biology
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from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida,
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and went on to obtain a PhD in marine science
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from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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After completing her studies,
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she held a postdoctoral research position
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at Cornell University.
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Our second presenter tonight will be Adrienne Correa.
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Dr. Correa is an associate professor
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of global change microbial ecology
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in the Department of Environmental Sciences,
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Policy and Management
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at the University of California-Berkeley.
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Adrienne first learned to scuba dive in graduate school
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while collecting invasive ants in the Hawaiian Islands.
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Her research turned to the ocean shortly thereafter,
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and today she explores the role of microbes
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in the health of coral reefs
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that are experiencing rapid environmental change.
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She received a PhD in ecology and evolution,
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and an MA in conservation biology from Columbia University.
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Her BS in biology
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is from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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Adrienne also served
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on the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
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Advisory Council from 2015 to 2022,
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and was named our Sanctuary Volunteer of the Year in 2023.
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Her research and teaching take her to coral reefs
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around the world, including the Gulf of Mexico,
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Australia, Belize, Panama, and the South Pacific.
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And our third presenter tonight will be Dan Holstein.
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Dr. Holstein is an assistant professor
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in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences
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at Louisiana State University,
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specializing in seascape and coral reef ecology.
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His seascape ecology lab pursues research
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at the interface of animal biology, marine ecology,
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environmental data science, and simulation modeling.
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His research seeks to understand
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how interconnected marine communities respond
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to global and environmental change,
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and how best to conserve
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and restore natural marine resources in an uncertain future.
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Dan earned his bachelor's in marine science and biology
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at the University of Miami in Florida,
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and earned his doctoral degree
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from University of Miami's Rosenstiel School
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of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences,
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focusing on mesophotic coral reefs,
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coral reproductive biology, and seascape connectivity.
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Following his doctorate, Dan went on to postdoc
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at the University of the Virgin Islands,
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where he now holds a courtesy appointment.
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Before joining LSU's faculty,
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he was the Mary Derrickson McCurdy visiting scholar
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at Duke University's Marine Laboratory.
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Welcome to all three of you.
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At this point, we will bring on the presenter screen.
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Okay, Laura, I can see it.
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Can you speak so I can make sure we can hear you?
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Yes, hi everyone.
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Laura is experiencing some difficulty with her camera
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so we won't be able to see her tonight,
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but you should be able to hear her.
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Great, thank you.
Hi, Laura.
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Great, thank you so much.
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So I wanted to first introduce our team.
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You've already heard about the other presenters,
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Adrienne and Dan with me today,
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but we have a really great group of researchers
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who've come together to study coral diseases.
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And it starts with our colleague
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in the University of Virgin Islands, Marilyn Brandt.
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And Adrienne and myself and Dan will be speaking today.
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And we also have Amy Apprill
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from the WoodsHole Oceanographic Institute.
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So our team of PIs is really just the tip of the iceberg.
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Sorry, I feel like I'm moving things here.
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It's really just the tip of the iceberg of,
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to accomplish the work, we have an enormous team
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of amazing group of researchers, students and technicians.
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And this is really the real team
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that I wanna acknowledge tonight.
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So before we start,
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we are going to talk a little bit about
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the key messages for tonight
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so you know what to look for in our talk.
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I'm going to talk a little bit about the impact
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that diseases have had on the reef.
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I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about coral immunity
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and how corals fight disease,
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but unfortunately many of them are losing the fight.
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We'll talk a little bit about our work
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on Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease,
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and how that's been a real big threat
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to coral reefs in the Caribbean.
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But it stimulated a lot of research
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and we'll tell you about what we've been doing.
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And then we're going to show how what we've established
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in Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease
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set us up for looking at the mystery disease
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in the Flower Garden Banks.
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And at that point,
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Adrienne and Dan will be sharing that news with you.
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So as many of you know, coral reefs are amazing ecosystems
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that support a diversity of marine life.
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They provide essential services to both ocean ecosystems
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and the human communities that live on them.
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Coral reefs, as many of you probably know,
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coral reefs protect coastlines from erosion and storm damage
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and provide habitats for marine species,
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and offer livelihoods to millions of people
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through fishing, tourism, and recreation.
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But right now, coral reefs are facing unprecedented threats
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that are causing their decline.
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In this graph, I'm showing you just an example
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of one species that's in the Caribbean,
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and showing how its populations have declined
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over the last 50 years, mainly due to coral diseases
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and another phenomenon known as coral bleaching,
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which I will talk about in a minute.
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So there's a lot of pressure on these fragile ecosystems,
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and a lot of the decline is caused, again,
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by disease and bleaching.
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So the reason that corals are so fragile and sensitive
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to environmental change
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is 'cause of their really unique biology.
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The coral itself is an animal,
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and it is many little animals that live together
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sort of in an underwater condominium,
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and it relies on a very close relationship
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with algae and bacteria in order to live and to thrive
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in the beautiful clear waters that we have in the Caribbean.
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The algae provides food through photosynthesizing
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and sending over some sugars and lipids over to the animal,
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and the microbes live in a mucus layer
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that can actually also provide protection
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to the surface of the coral,
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and provide a protection within it as well.
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So together, when it's healthy,
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the coral can thrive with its algal and microbial partners.
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And so when the whole coral animal
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and bacteria are in balance, the coral is really healthy,
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as you can see in the middle picture,
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it's brown and it has algae,
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and the brown is from the color of the algae.
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And if any imbalance though occurs in any of the partners,
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that's called dysbiosis.
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And if there's a imbalance specifically
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between the coral animal and the algae partner,
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that can cause the algae to leave the coral tissue
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and then the reef will look really white
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like it does in this picture.
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I don't know if anyone can see my pointer,
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but in the picture here under bleaching.
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This coral is still alive
267
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but it is missing this algal symbiont
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that's really helping gather its food.
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And if the conditions don't improve,
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the coral can eventually die.
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But they can also recover if the conditions,
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if the temperature stress
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will be alleviated in a short amount of time.
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If there's an imbalance in the microbial partners,
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00:13:35.828 --> 00:13:39.823
then the corals sometimes can get sick and get disease.
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And so that's what we're showing here in this other picture,
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where in this case, the white part of the coral is dead,
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and this will likely spread across the coral and kill it.
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And so it's really that microbial sort of imbalance
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that we're gonna talk about today that causes coral disease.
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And right now,
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we're kind of in a global coral disease crisis
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where diseases are particularly abundant in the Caribbean,
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and they are really causing a lot of coral decline.
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What I'm showing you here
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are a lot of pictures of different coral diseases.
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We can see a few of them are large kind of white bands
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or white plagues.
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00:14:28.643 --> 00:14:31.508
And again, I'm not really sure to use my pointer,
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but sorry, there's some of them
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that have white bands and white plagues,
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and there's one all the way at the end here
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that has really small little white pox, it's called.
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And then some of coral diseases appear
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00:14:44.190 --> 00:14:48.150
by having a darker sort of pigment, like a purple pigment,
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like we can see in some of these panels,
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E and G specifically.
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And some of these diseases appear
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as circular yellow or black rings or bands.
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And you'll notice
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by the way I'm describing the coral diseases,
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it's really, we describe them by what they look like
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when we see them under the water.
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We actually don't have a lot of pathogens identified
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00:15:12.167 --> 00:15:13.530
for these diseases.
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So unlike the fact when we get flu,
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we know it's caused by the influenza virus,
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we really don't know
309
00:15:19.935 --> 00:15:22.833
what is causing a lot of these coral diseases.
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And we really don't know if it's one pathogen
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or multiple pathogens,
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or it's response to some environmental stressors as well.
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So coral diseases have increased in the ocean
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due to a combination of factors.
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A lot of it's driven by human activities
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and environmental stressors.
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00:15:51.030 --> 00:15:54.193
Sometimes pollution from agricultural runoff or sewage
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and other coastal development projects
319
00:15:56.610 --> 00:16:00.780
can introduce new pathogens and pollutants into the ocean.
320
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Also, climate change can cause spread of pathogens
321
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to new areas.
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In addition, the climate change and ocean warming
323
00:16:12.900 --> 00:16:15.480
can weaken the coral's natural defenses
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and cause them to be immune compromised,
325
00:16:18.930 --> 00:16:22.083
which can make them more susceptible to diseases.
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00:16:23.930 --> 00:16:25.718
One question I always get is,
327
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can corals actually fight disease,
328
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and what is their immune system like?
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00:16:29.557 --> 00:16:31.303
So I thought I would take a little time
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and explain that a little bit to you guys.
331
00:16:33.690 --> 00:16:36.360
So how do corals fight disease?
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00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:41.100
Well, corals have a very unique suite of immune mechanisms.
333
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So corals are very basic animals,
334
00:16:43.212 --> 00:16:46.110
but they do have sophisticated immune responses
335
00:16:46.110 --> 00:16:48.271
that we're learning more and more about,
336
00:16:48.271 --> 00:16:51.150
especially as we're tackling new diseases.
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One important part of coral immunity
338
00:16:53.780 --> 00:16:55.710
that's important to understand
339
00:16:55.710 --> 00:16:58.222
is that coral immunity is innate immunity.
340
00:16:58.222 --> 00:17:01.530
Innate immunity is the first line of defense for corals,
341
00:17:01.530 --> 00:17:03.915
and in addition, for humans.
342
00:17:03.915 --> 00:17:06.703
Innate immunity is the part of our immune response
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that acts really fast to neutralize pathogens
344
00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:12.180
and protect us from the infection,
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so this would be like inflammation and fever in humans.
346
00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:19.110
But this is really all corals have to fight with.
347
00:17:19.110 --> 00:17:22.380
So they, unlike humans and other vertebrates,
348
00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:24.442
don't have adaptive immunity,
349
00:17:24.442 --> 00:17:26.970
which means they can't produce antibodies
350
00:17:26.970 --> 00:17:28.980
and remember past infections
351
00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:32.880
in order to fight new ones faster and stronger.
352
00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:37.187
It also means they can't be vaccinated for diseases.
353
00:17:37.187 --> 00:17:39.600
So even if that was possible underwater,
354
00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:41.210
we really can't do that.
355
00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:45.030
Corals are missing those specialized immune cells
356
00:17:45.030 --> 00:17:47.897
such as lymphocytes, which are really crucial
357
00:17:47.897 --> 00:17:51.835
for executing the adaptive immune response.
358
00:17:51.835 --> 00:17:54.440
But even if they don't have those lymphocytes,
359
00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:57.840
they do have some really cool cellular responses,
360
00:17:57.840 --> 00:18:01.053
again, relying primarily on that innate immune response.
361
00:18:02.362 --> 00:18:04.980
So some of the responses that they have
362
00:18:04.980 --> 00:18:09.660
that I'm showing you here are physical barriers
363
00:18:09.660 --> 00:18:13.140
and the mucus layer, which is the first line of defense
364
00:18:13.140 --> 00:18:16.803
to help kill any invading pathogens.
365
00:18:19.560 --> 00:18:24.560
Any new diseases or viruses or bacteria
366
00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:29.697
are detected by extracellular receptors
367
00:18:29.697 --> 00:18:32.117
that corals have, a nice suite of them,
368
00:18:32.117 --> 00:18:35.310
and that's in blue here in the top corner, top left corner.
369
00:18:35.310 --> 00:18:38.370
These will detect the pathogens
370
00:18:38.370 --> 00:18:43.233
and send a signal to start responding.
371
00:18:44.988 --> 00:18:48.690
The receptors will signal to make antimicrobial peptides,
372
00:18:48.690 --> 00:18:52.170
which are in this large well plate here,
373
00:18:52.170 --> 00:18:56.673
where the corals can actually prevent bacteria from growing.
374
00:18:58.920 --> 00:19:02.160
Corals also use reactive oxygen species
375
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:05.850
down here in this other blue photo,
376
00:19:05.850 --> 00:19:08.928
which I, sorry, my pointer's not working either.
377
00:19:08.928 --> 00:19:10.320
And these react-
378
00:19:10.320 --> 00:19:13.935
Laura, we can see your pointer, so that's good.
379
00:19:13.935 --> 00:19:15.185
You can?
380
00:19:15.185 --> 00:19:17.460
Yes.
Oh, excellent.
381
00:19:17.460 --> 00:19:20.190
So here these are reactive oxygen species
382
00:19:20.190 --> 00:19:21.860
like hydrogen peroxide,
383
00:19:21.860 --> 00:19:25.380
which we all actually use on ourself to fight infection,
384
00:19:25.380 --> 00:19:27.303
so corals also use that.
385
00:19:29.460 --> 00:19:33.750
And then in these pictures here of these histology pictures,
386
00:19:33.750 --> 00:19:36.997
I'm showing another immune cell that is not a lymphocyte,
387
00:19:36.997 --> 00:19:38.720
but is called an amoebocyte,
388
00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:41.490
which does actually aggregate in your infection
389
00:19:41.490 --> 00:19:43.590
and help to wall off the infection.
390
00:19:43.590 --> 00:19:46.877
And sometimes they're gonna lay down a physical barrier
391
00:19:46.877 --> 00:19:50.460
known as melanin, which is here in this black,
392
00:19:50.460 --> 00:19:54.003
stained here in this black image.
393
00:19:55.650 --> 00:19:59.580
So in addition, if all of these work really well,
394
00:19:59.580 --> 00:20:03.570
the wound due to a disease can actually heal,
395
00:20:03.570 --> 00:20:05.610
like this picture here of this coral,
396
00:20:05.610 --> 00:20:07.808
and the disease can be stopped.
397
00:20:10.830 --> 00:20:13.380
So that's all if the immunity is working well
398
00:20:13.380 --> 00:20:16.200
and of course there's no immune compromise
399
00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:17.883
due to any kind of stressor.
400
00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:23.580
So now we'll talk a little bit about
401
00:20:23.580 --> 00:20:28.580
everything that we've learned from the outbreak
402
00:20:28.583 --> 00:20:30.990
of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.
403
00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:35.990
So in 2014, there was a mysterious disease that hit Florida
404
00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:39.213
and then spread throughout the Caribbean.
405
00:20:40.138 --> 00:20:41.814
This disease was later called
406
00:20:41.814 --> 00:20:43.890
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.
407
00:20:43.890 --> 00:20:45.930
And it started by affecting
408
00:20:45.930 --> 00:20:48.838
a lot of these beautiful brain corals
409
00:20:48.838 --> 00:20:51.396
that we have in the Caribbean.
410
00:20:54.900 --> 00:20:59.640
Since this disease was so prevalent
411
00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:02.297
and was killing corals at a really fast rate,
412
00:21:02.297 --> 00:21:03.990
it really brought together
413
00:21:03.990 --> 00:21:06.350
science and management communities
414
00:21:06.350 --> 00:21:08.520
to not only understand the disease
415
00:21:08.520 --> 00:21:10.275
but work hard to mitigate it.
416
00:21:10.275 --> 00:21:15.030
And this is just an example of the Florida response partners
417
00:21:15.030 --> 00:21:19.740
that came together to both study the basic biology
418
00:21:19.740 --> 00:21:21.720
of the disease and the corals,
419
00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:26.160
as well as to execute some mitigation responses.
420
00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:29.070
In response to stony coral tissue loss disease,
421
00:21:29.070 --> 00:21:31.130
Florida did remove healthy corals
422
00:21:31.130 --> 00:21:33.330
of those most susceptible species,
423
00:21:33.330 --> 00:21:35.160
especially those brain corals,
424
00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:38.550
and distributed them around to different zoos and aquariums
425
00:21:38.550 --> 00:21:39.862
around the country.
426
00:21:39.862 --> 00:21:42.612
And actually, I just recently found out in Fort Worth here
427
00:21:42.612 --> 00:21:45.813
we have some of these Florida corals that were rescued.
428
00:21:47.490 --> 00:21:49.573
Other mitigation for this disease
429
00:21:49.573 --> 00:21:53.760
is an epoxy with an antimicrobial compound in it
430
00:21:55.230 --> 00:21:59.910
that has had a effect of stalling
431
00:21:59.910 --> 00:22:02.025
some of the lesions from growing,
432
00:22:02.025 --> 00:22:07.020
and a lot of organizations are using that to go down,
433
00:22:07.020 --> 00:22:12.020
and this is hand-applied to the coral from scuba divers.
434
00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:16.380
So that's a lot of mitigation,
435
00:22:16.380 --> 00:22:19.685
a lot of manpower contributing to mitigation
436
00:22:19.685 --> 00:22:21.840
of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease
437
00:22:21.840 --> 00:22:23.683
because of how bad it was.
438
00:22:26.280 --> 00:22:28.290
And so in 2019,
439
00:22:28.290 --> 00:22:31.890
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease hit the US Virgin Islands.
440
00:22:31.890 --> 00:22:36.660
And our team had been working together in a variety of ways,
441
00:22:36.660 --> 00:22:39.360
but we really assembled and came together
442
00:22:39.360 --> 00:22:44.127
to study this disease and we were able to kind of note
443
00:22:44.127 --> 00:22:46.590
and watch it spread throughout,
444
00:22:46.590 --> 00:22:48.870
which was of course very, very sad
445
00:22:48.870 --> 00:22:52.500
but also we were able to learn a lot from it.
446
00:22:52.500 --> 00:22:54.360
And we kind of came up with,
447
00:22:54.360 --> 00:22:58.110
our team has a variety of different interests
448
00:22:58.110 --> 00:22:59.910
and different expertise,
449
00:22:59.910 --> 00:23:02.850
and we were able to kind of come up with a plan
450
00:23:02.850 --> 00:23:07.323
where we stacked different layers of data together.
451
00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:11.100
So the first thing we do is,
452
00:23:11.100 --> 00:23:14.703
and this is by our colleague Marilyn Brandt
453
00:23:14.703 --> 00:23:16.260
in the Virgin Islands,
454
00:23:16.260 --> 00:23:19.140
is that she does a lot of the disease ecology
455
00:23:19.140 --> 00:23:22.440
and notes the visual signs of disease.
456
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:24.360
She's able to track the spread
457
00:23:24.360 --> 00:23:26.765
and the different species that it affects,
458
00:23:26.765 --> 00:23:31.200
as well as look at lesion growth on corals in situ.
459
00:23:31.200 --> 00:23:32.370
We also come in
460
00:23:32.370 --> 00:23:34.770
and look at cellular and molecular processes.
461
00:23:34.770 --> 00:23:37.140
We wanna know how the coral's responding,
462
00:23:37.140 --> 00:23:40.230
what of those immune responses that I talked about
463
00:23:40.230 --> 00:23:41.400
are they doing?
464
00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:44.250
And if these immune responses can lead us
465
00:23:44.250 --> 00:23:47.760
to understand if there's a specific pathogen
466
00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:50.073
or anything unique about this disease.
467
00:23:51.600 --> 00:23:53.880
And then some of our colleagues,
468
00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:55.920
Amy Apprill and Adrienne Correa
469
00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:57.930
will look at microbial signatures,
470
00:23:57.930 --> 00:24:00.960
it's important to characterize the microbial community,
471
00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:02.707
and to look for any changes.
472
00:24:02.707 --> 00:24:05.400
And this would be both in the bacterial
473
00:24:05.400 --> 00:24:09.423
and as well as in the virum of the corals.
474
00:24:12.300 --> 00:24:16.120
And so to kick us off in what we learned from our studies
475
00:24:17.679 --> 00:24:19.100
in the Virgin Islands
476
00:24:19.100 --> 00:24:21.455
related to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease,
477
00:24:21.455 --> 00:24:24.250
I'll turn over to my colleague, Adrienne Correa.
478
00:24:27.780 --> 00:24:29.610
Oops, thanks, L.
479
00:24:29.610 --> 00:24:30.801
Can you hear me?
480
00:24:30.801 --> 00:24:32.460
Thanks, Laura.
Yes.
481
00:24:32.460 --> 00:24:34.020
Okay, wonderful.
482
00:24:34.020 --> 00:24:35.640
So I'll just add in addition
483
00:24:35.640 --> 00:24:40.640
to the different approaches and signs,
484
00:24:40.710 --> 00:24:44.130
the data types that Laura just talked about for SCTLD,
485
00:24:44.130 --> 00:24:46.758
I also wanna highlight that within our group,
486
00:24:46.758 --> 00:24:50.670
Dan Holstein and Aaron Mueller from Mote Marine Lab
487
00:24:50.670 --> 00:24:52.627
have also been contributing
488
00:24:52.627 --> 00:24:57.030
to sort of looking at synthesizing across
489
00:24:57.030 --> 00:25:00.360
these different types of data, and also hydrodynamics,
490
00:25:00.360 --> 00:25:02.827
which you'll hear from Dan about soon
491
00:25:04.137 --> 00:25:09.137
to help with the team coming up with a holistic perspective
492
00:25:09.750 --> 00:25:14.750
on what's happening in these SCTLD disease signs.
493
00:25:15.360 --> 00:25:19.350
So here you can see some of the first things
494
00:25:19.350 --> 00:25:22.200
that we've seen through this collaborative team
495
00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:23.760
and the body of work
496
00:25:23.760 --> 00:25:26.760
that's coming out from the US Virgin Islands.
497
00:25:26.760 --> 00:25:31.760
So similar to in SCTLD signs in Florida,
498
00:25:32.070 --> 00:25:34.920
we've seen that in the Virgin Islands,
499
00:25:34.920 --> 00:25:38.880
you're often seeing these SCTLD disease signs first
500
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:42.120
on corals that have the squiggly lines
501
00:25:42.120 --> 00:25:45.000
like you can see on the rightmost bottom coral,
502
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:47.490
so brain or maze corals.
503
00:25:47.490 --> 00:25:52.490
And then you tend to see SCTLD disease signs
504
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:57.680
on corals that have the more circular or starlike shapes.
505
00:25:58.110 --> 00:26:01.188
And when we see these SCTLD lesions,
506
00:26:01.188 --> 00:26:03.540
you can see some of them in this photo,
507
00:26:03.540 --> 00:26:06.690
it's that bright white area on the coral colony,
508
00:26:06.690 --> 00:26:10.380
where again, the coral tissue is dead
509
00:26:10.380 --> 00:26:13.050
and has been lost there very rapidly.
510
00:26:13.050 --> 00:26:15.690
And one of the interesting things with SCTLD
511
00:26:15.690 --> 00:26:19.290
that helps us visually recognize it in the field
512
00:26:19.290 --> 00:26:23.010
is that you don't just see the lesions appearing
513
00:26:23.010 --> 00:26:25.200
at the edge of the colony,
514
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:29.040
you can see lesions appearing in multiple places on a colony
515
00:26:29.040 --> 00:26:30.540
in the US Virgin Islands.
516
00:26:30.540 --> 00:26:34.560
And often these lesions will all be growing
517
00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:36.870
until they start merging together,
518
00:26:36.870 --> 00:26:39.268
and so you can have a lot of tissue loss
519
00:26:39.268 --> 00:26:42.120
off of even very big colonies very quickly.
520
00:26:42.120 --> 00:26:45.210
And then there are a few types of species
521
00:26:45.210 --> 00:26:48.930
that typically resist SCTLD infection
522
00:26:48.930 --> 00:26:53.130
even when we see these diseases kind of rampant
523
00:26:53.130 --> 00:26:55.200
across a reef.
524
00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:57.750
So that's another sort of ecological hallmark
525
00:26:57.750 --> 00:26:59.850
of how this disease goes.
526
00:26:59.850 --> 00:27:00.683
Next slide.
527
00:27:03.588 --> 00:27:04.800
So in terms of,
528
00:27:04.800 --> 00:27:07.745
I'm just gonna go through some of what we found
529
00:27:07.745 --> 00:27:10.140
for SCTLD from the Virgin Islands.
530
00:27:10.140 --> 00:27:12.660
So for example,
531
00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:17.660
Laura's lab was looking at the cellular molecular signatures
532
00:27:17.760 --> 00:27:22.477
that corals and also their algal symbionts were sort of,
533
00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:27.180
the signatures that disease colonies had
534
00:27:27.180 --> 00:27:29.553
versus apparently healthy colonies had.
535
00:27:31.170 --> 00:27:35.852
And here what you can see is that some interesting things
536
00:27:35.852 --> 00:27:38.010
that suggest there's a specialized
537
00:27:38.010 --> 00:27:41.280
and a heightened immune response occurring in colonies
538
00:27:41.280 --> 00:27:44.490
that are showing these SCTLD signs.
539
00:27:44.490 --> 00:27:48.450
So both from gene expression of the coral itself,
540
00:27:48.450 --> 00:27:49.620
the coral animal,
541
00:27:49.620 --> 00:27:51.630
gene expression from the algae
542
00:27:51.630 --> 00:27:53.910
that the coral animal contains,
543
00:27:53.910 --> 00:27:56.280
and then also in the middle,
544
00:27:56.280 --> 00:27:58.510
you can see these sort of pink photos
545
00:27:58.510 --> 00:28:03.300
are histological sections, so sectioning really thin pieces
546
00:28:03.300 --> 00:28:05.250
of the coral colony tissue
547
00:28:05.250 --> 00:28:08.502
and then looking at them up close under the microscope.
548
00:28:08.502 --> 00:28:10.740
We can also see signs there
549
00:28:10.740 --> 00:28:14.580
of what healthy versus diseased colonies look like.
550
00:28:14.580 --> 00:28:17.613
And one of the things that we've seen are signs,
551
00:28:18.840 --> 00:28:22.230
from both the gene expression and these tissue pictures,
552
00:28:22.230 --> 00:28:25.470
is that part of what's happening in a coral
553
00:28:25.470 --> 00:28:30.470
that has SCTLD signs is that it appears to be digesting
554
00:28:31.050 --> 00:28:33.510
or eating up its own algae cells
555
00:28:33.510 --> 00:28:37.108
that it's typically heavily reliant on to be healthy
556
00:28:37.108 --> 00:28:39.540
when things are going well in a colony.
557
00:28:39.540 --> 00:28:42.390
So that appears to be an interesting mechanism
558
00:28:42.390 --> 00:28:46.990
to fight disease, is to eat up your own microbes
559
00:28:49.020 --> 00:28:50.730
that usually help you.
560
00:28:50.730 --> 00:28:51.563
Next slide.
561
00:28:54.630 --> 00:28:57.390
And I'll get a little more into detail on this one
562
00:28:57.390 --> 00:28:59.013
because I'm a virologist,
563
00:28:59.013 --> 00:29:01.890
and so I gotta tell you about the viruses.
564
00:29:01.890 --> 00:29:05.400
One of the interesting things is when we have looked at
565
00:29:05.400 --> 00:29:10.320
what might be the agent causing diseases in a coral,
566
00:29:10.320 --> 00:29:13.620
historically for most diseases there's a lot more data
567
00:29:13.620 --> 00:29:16.897
and a lot more research available for bacteria,
568
00:29:16.897 --> 00:29:19.487
kinds of bacteria that are present in disease
569
00:29:19.487 --> 00:29:21.720
versus apparently healthy tissues.
570
00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:25.810
There's been much less exploration of what viruses look like
571
00:29:26.989 --> 00:29:28.953
in apparently healthy colonies
572
00:29:28.953 --> 00:29:33.330
'cause viruses are present in apparently healthy colonies,
573
00:29:33.330 --> 00:29:35.760
and then what viral loads look like
574
00:29:35.760 --> 00:29:39.450
and what virus diversity looks like in diseased colonies.
575
00:29:39.450 --> 00:29:41.920
So we were able to look at viruses
576
00:29:44.922 --> 00:29:48.330
in an SCTLD transmission experiment.
577
00:29:48.330 --> 00:29:51.030
And so here you can see the results from that
578
00:29:51.030 --> 00:29:53.130
for corals from the Virgin Islands.
579
00:29:53.130 --> 00:29:54.750
So each one,
580
00:29:54.750 --> 00:29:58.833
here you can see this row of little vertical bars.
581
00:29:59.820 --> 00:30:01.260
Well, so at the top,
582
00:30:01.260 --> 00:30:03.887
there was just one row of little vertical bars.
583
00:30:03.887 --> 00:30:06.840
Laura, can you go back for one sec?
584
00:30:06.840 --> 00:30:07.673
Oops.
585
00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:10.560
Oh well, okay yeah, thanks.
586
00:30:10.560 --> 00:30:13.440
So here's one row of these little vertical bars.
587
00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:16.620
And so what each one of these bars represents
588
00:30:16.620 --> 00:30:20.550
is a sample of a piece of a colony
589
00:30:20.550 --> 00:30:22.500
during this transmission experiment.
590
00:30:22.500 --> 00:30:25.857
And so as you can see from the groupings at the top,
591
00:30:25.857 --> 00:30:29.250
a bunch of these, we had a bunch of samples from colonies
592
00:30:29.250 --> 00:30:32.580
that were apparently healthy throughout this experiment,
593
00:30:32.580 --> 00:30:36.420
some samples from colonies that were exposed to SCTLD
594
00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:39.210
but remained healthy throughout the experiment,
595
00:30:39.210 --> 00:30:41.790
and then some samples from colonies
596
00:30:41.790 --> 00:30:44.598
that got diseased throughout the experiment.
597
00:30:45.523 --> 00:30:47.495
And then all the way on the left,
598
00:30:47.495 --> 00:30:49.989
there's this word, algavirales, by the star.
599
00:30:49.989 --> 00:30:53.280
So that is a kind of, that's a virus group.
600
00:30:53.280 --> 00:30:54.870
And so this is the data.
601
00:30:54.870 --> 00:30:57.228
So each one of these little bars
602
00:30:57.228 --> 00:30:59.820
kind of shows in this experiment
603
00:30:59.820 --> 00:31:02.500
whether or not a particular viral group
604
00:31:03.510 --> 00:31:06.120
exhibited something special in the colonies,
605
00:31:06.120 --> 00:31:07.950
the samples that got diseased,
606
00:31:07.950 --> 00:31:10.110
versus those that remained healthy.
607
00:31:10.110 --> 00:31:14.370
So when a sample exhibited sort of a special extra load
608
00:31:14.370 --> 00:31:15.930
of a kind of virus,
609
00:31:15.930 --> 00:31:18.450
you'll see it as a warmer color for that bar.
610
00:31:18.450 --> 00:31:21.960
So yellow means there was a lot of that viral group
611
00:31:21.960 --> 00:31:23.597
in that particular sample.
612
00:31:23.597 --> 00:31:26.370
So for the algavirales viruses,
613
00:31:26.370 --> 00:31:29.223
you could see that there are a lot more warm bars
614
00:31:29.223 --> 00:31:31.350
in the diseased samples that we took.
615
00:31:31.350 --> 00:31:33.240
And now, Laura, if you'll click ahead,
616
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:35.610
so the gray bars mean that there was nothing special
617
00:31:35.610 --> 00:31:37.102
about that viral group.
618
00:31:37.102 --> 00:31:38.500
And now here you can see
619
00:31:38.500 --> 00:31:41.400
that there were actually quite a few viral groups,
620
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:42.810
so eight of them,
621
00:31:42.810 --> 00:31:47.310
where we saw a special viral response in our samples.
622
00:31:47.310 --> 00:31:49.343
And you can see from the fact that
623
00:31:49.343 --> 00:31:51.330
there are lots of that yellow color
624
00:31:51.330 --> 00:31:55.260
and lots of the non gray colors in the diseased section,
625
00:31:55.260 --> 00:31:58.140
that it's very interesting to see
626
00:31:58.140 --> 00:32:00.840
that there are quite a few viral groups
627
00:32:00.840 --> 00:32:03.677
that appear to be particularly abundant
628
00:32:03.677 --> 00:32:05.430
in these diseased samples.
629
00:32:05.430 --> 00:32:07.673
And some of these viruses are predicted
630
00:32:07.673 --> 00:32:09.590
to infect the algae symbiont,
631
00:32:09.590 --> 00:32:12.900
and some of them are predicted to infect the coral animal,
632
00:32:12.900 --> 00:32:15.067
and then others we're not so sure about.
633
00:32:15.067 --> 00:32:17.515
So one thing we can see is that there are a lot of viruses
634
00:32:17.515 --> 00:32:19.140
in these diseased tissues.
635
00:32:19.140 --> 00:32:20.343
Okay, next slide.
636
00:32:22.050 --> 00:32:23.040
Whoop.
637
00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:25.238
And then another thing that we saw,
638
00:32:25.238 --> 00:32:28.830
we looked at what kinds of the algal symbiont
639
00:32:28.830 --> 00:32:31.830
were present in those corals that we sampled
640
00:32:31.830 --> 00:32:34.950
and put through that disease transmission experiment.
641
00:32:34.950 --> 00:32:38.730
These different kinds of algae can have different properties
642
00:32:38.730 --> 00:32:42.278
and they can influence all kinds of things about the host
643
00:32:42.278 --> 00:32:44.370
like how much sugar it's receiving,
644
00:32:44.370 --> 00:32:47.587
how fast the colony's growing and other types of things.
645
00:32:47.587 --> 00:32:51.120
So we were curious if maybe only corals
646
00:32:51.120 --> 00:32:53.250
that contain certain kinds of algae
647
00:32:53.250 --> 00:32:55.530
would be the ones that got SCTLD.
648
00:32:55.530 --> 00:32:57.475
But what we found out was, no,
649
00:32:57.475 --> 00:33:01.845
we could see examples of different corals that got SCTLD
650
00:33:01.845 --> 00:33:04.380
that had all kinds of different algae in them.
651
00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:06.570
So there wasn't just one kind of algae
652
00:33:06.570 --> 00:33:09.720
that made a colony susceptible to SCTLD.
653
00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:12.120
And interestingly, from this experiment,
654
00:33:12.120 --> 00:33:15.660
we also saw that a particular kind of algae,
655
00:33:15.660 --> 00:33:18.870
this lineage called durusdinium,
656
00:33:18.870 --> 00:33:21.360
tended to be associated with corals
657
00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:24.390
that got severe SCTLD infections.
658
00:33:24.390 --> 00:33:26.273
So it's gonna be interesting
659
00:33:26.273 --> 00:33:29.550
to look further into the potential roles and connections
660
00:33:29.550 --> 00:33:33.180
of what kind of algae symbiont a coral has,
661
00:33:33.180 --> 00:33:36.157
and how it experiences SCTLD.
662
00:33:36.157 --> 00:33:37.315
And then finally,
663
00:33:37.315 --> 00:33:40.410
we also did look at what kind of bacteria were present
664
00:33:40.410 --> 00:33:42.455
in these corals in this experiment.
665
00:33:42.455 --> 00:33:45.605
And we saw that there were some interesting patterns,
666
00:33:45.605 --> 00:33:48.252
kind of like the viral data that I showed you
667
00:33:48.252 --> 00:33:50.130
where you could predict
668
00:33:50.130 --> 00:33:53.520
where there were patterns in certain groups of bacteria
669
00:33:53.520 --> 00:33:57.570
also being present in diseased samples
670
00:33:57.570 --> 00:33:59.790
versus apparently healthy corals.
671
00:33:59.790 --> 00:34:00.623
Next slide.
672
00:34:03.570 --> 00:34:04.403
Okay.
673
00:34:04.403 --> 00:34:09.080
And so this here is one probably oversimplified
674
00:34:11.070 --> 00:34:14.235
because there are so many different kinds of microbes
675
00:34:14.235 --> 00:34:19.140
and colony responses and things happening in SCTLD,
676
00:34:19.140 --> 00:34:21.570
but this represents one sort of distillation
677
00:34:21.570 --> 00:34:24.960
of a prediction of what could be happening
678
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:29.222
during an SCTLD, a colony exhibiting SCTLD.
679
00:34:29.222 --> 00:34:31.740
So this is not proven,
680
00:34:31.740 --> 00:34:34.020
but we're seeing very interesting signs
681
00:34:34.020 --> 00:34:36.330
that this could be an important part
682
00:34:36.330 --> 00:34:39.780
of an SCTLD disease progression.
683
00:34:39.780 --> 00:34:43.110
So first there could be some sort of viral infection
684
00:34:43.110 --> 00:34:44.220
of the algae,
685
00:34:44.220 --> 00:34:47.010
and this could lead to a disrupted partnership
686
00:34:47.010 --> 00:34:49.170
between the coral and the algae.
687
00:34:49.170 --> 00:34:52.420
And also then the coral is starving
688
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:57.150
in part because this partnership has been disrupted
689
00:34:57.150 --> 00:35:00.210
and the algae is no longer providing sugars
690
00:35:00.210 --> 00:35:02.190
to its coral host.
691
00:35:02.190 --> 00:35:05.550
And then the coral may be recognizing
692
00:35:05.550 --> 00:35:08.760
that something has gone wrong with its algal symbiont
693
00:35:08.760 --> 00:35:13.760
and start sort of getting rid of these problematic,
694
00:35:14.370 --> 00:35:17.490
what have become a problematic non-partner
695
00:35:17.490 --> 00:35:18.693
within its tissues,
696
00:35:19.560 --> 00:35:23.430
inducing cell death and engaging in other immune responses.
697
00:35:23.430 --> 00:35:26.910
So this is one pathway along which SCTLD
698
00:35:26.910 --> 00:35:29.160
may be affecting colonies.
699
00:35:29.160 --> 00:35:29.993
Next.
700
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:36.440
Okay, and so this work, this collaborative work
701
00:35:36.570 --> 00:35:39.780
to try to understand what's happening in SCTLD,
702
00:35:39.780 --> 00:35:43.440
and the work that many scientists across the Caribbean
703
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:46.933
have been doing as well to try to understand what's going on
704
00:35:46.933 --> 00:35:48.870
with colonies affected by SCTLD,
705
00:35:48.870 --> 00:35:52.560
it's really important to try to comprehensively characterize
706
00:35:52.560 --> 00:35:54.990
what happens in one type of disease
707
00:35:54.990 --> 00:35:58.080
and all of the types of diseases that affect corals
708
00:35:58.080 --> 00:36:01.710
because then if a new disease arises in a place,
709
00:36:01.710 --> 00:36:04.852
we can use all of that information to try to understand
710
00:36:04.852 --> 00:36:06.780
what this new disease is.
711
00:36:06.780 --> 00:36:08.430
Next.
712
00:36:08.430 --> 00:36:11.370
And so therefore, as was discussed earlier,
713
00:36:11.370 --> 00:36:14.950
in the summer of 2022 when NOAA staff identified
714
00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:19.830
what appeared to be a mystery disease was affecting corals
715
00:36:19.830 --> 00:36:23.003
on the Flower Garden Banks at East and West Banks,
716
00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:28.737
we were very concerned along with everyone else
717
00:36:28.737 --> 00:36:30.900
and wanted to see what we could do
718
00:36:30.900 --> 00:36:33.225
to try to help understand the characteristics
719
00:36:33.225 --> 00:36:35.302
of the Flower Garden Banks disease
720
00:36:35.302 --> 00:36:38.090
and how it might relate to other known diseases.
721
00:36:38.090 --> 00:36:38.923
Next.
722
00:36:40.080 --> 00:36:43.590
So you can see in the upper left corner of this graph,
723
00:36:43.590 --> 00:36:48.190
this is a graph of where we have looked for SCTLD
724
00:36:48.190 --> 00:36:51.000
throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico,
725
00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:53.172
and where we've actually seen it.
726
00:36:53.172 --> 00:36:56.625
So any green dots indicate that SCTLD appears to be absent,
727
00:36:56.625 --> 00:36:58.585
and that dot where the mouse is
728
00:36:58.585 --> 00:37:00.352
is where the Flower Garden Banks is.
729
00:37:00.352 --> 00:37:02.453
So we'd never actually seen SCTLD
730
00:37:02.453 --> 00:37:04.003
at the Flower Garden Banks.
731
00:37:04.003 --> 00:37:05.718
So we were hoping this mystery disease
732
00:37:05.718 --> 00:37:08.310
at the Flower Garden Banks would not be SCTLD.
733
00:37:08.310 --> 00:37:09.143
Next.
734
00:37:10.110 --> 00:37:12.030
And this is an infographic
735
00:37:12.030 --> 00:37:15.060
that has been used to help people understand
736
00:37:15.060 --> 00:37:17.080
and spread the word on SCTLD.
737
00:37:17.080 --> 00:37:19.860
And so the top two rows of photos
738
00:37:19.860 --> 00:37:21.660
are showing different aspects
739
00:37:21.660 --> 00:37:25.028
of what SCTLD disease signs look like.
740
00:37:25.028 --> 00:37:26.520
But this bottom row,
741
00:37:26.520 --> 00:37:29.625
one of the challenges is that there are other diseases,
742
00:37:29.625 --> 00:37:32.133
as Laura alluded to in her part of the talk,
743
00:37:33.270 --> 00:37:37.050
that can also look like a white strip of los tissue
744
00:37:37.050 --> 00:37:38.490
but are not SCTLD.
745
00:37:38.490 --> 00:37:42.360
So different kinds of coral disease signs can look similar.
746
00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:47.360
And so the advent or the discovery of this novel disease
747
00:37:47.520 --> 00:37:49.920
at Flower Garden Banks, there was concern,
748
00:37:49.920 --> 00:37:53.220
could this be SCTLD or is this a different disease
749
00:37:53.220 --> 00:37:55.110
or is this a completely new disease
750
00:37:55.110 --> 00:37:57.330
that we've never even seen before?
751
00:37:57.330 --> 00:37:58.163
Next.
752
00:38:00.139 --> 00:38:03.570
And so whether or not this is a new disease
753
00:38:03.570 --> 00:38:06.030
or a new disease versus a known disease
754
00:38:06.030 --> 00:38:09.120
at the Flower Garden Banks, is really important.
755
00:38:09.120 --> 00:38:12.750
Because, for example, let's say that you feel sick
756
00:38:12.750 --> 00:38:16.530
and then you find out that you have the flu
757
00:38:16.530 --> 00:38:20.100
or a cold versus COVID-19.
758
00:38:20.100 --> 00:38:23.730
Your behavior in response to finding out how you are sick
759
00:38:23.730 --> 00:38:27.240
and what it is that you actually have might be different
760
00:38:27.240 --> 00:38:28.740
if you find out you have a cold
761
00:38:28.740 --> 00:38:31.170
versus if you find out you have COVID-19.
762
00:38:31.170 --> 00:38:35.550
And the way that you treat your symptoms might be different
763
00:38:35.550 --> 00:38:39.810
depending on what disease you're actually afflicted with.
764
00:38:39.810 --> 00:38:43.410
And the same goes for management implications
765
00:38:43.410 --> 00:38:48.120
if the Flower Garden Banks is experiencing SCTLD
766
00:38:48.120 --> 00:38:51.180
for the first time or some other known disease,
767
00:38:51.180 --> 00:38:53.670
or a completely new disease.
768
00:38:53.670 --> 00:38:55.980
So our team was able to participate
769
00:38:55.980 --> 00:38:57.660
in two different research cruises
770
00:38:57.660 --> 00:39:00.150
looking at some of the corals that were at the banks
771
00:39:00.150 --> 00:39:02.490
to try to help inform the response
772
00:39:02.490 --> 00:39:04.140
to whatever this disease was.
773
00:39:04.140 --> 00:39:04.973
Next.
774
00:39:06.510 --> 00:39:09.930
And so similar, you can click through these, Laura,
775
00:39:09.930 --> 00:39:11.160
on these research cruises,
776
00:39:11.160 --> 00:39:14.520
we basically tried to collect the exact same types of data
777
00:39:14.520 --> 00:39:17.670
that we had previously been collecting for SCTLD
778
00:39:17.670 --> 00:39:20.250
and for other types of diseases in the Virgin Islands
779
00:39:20.250 --> 00:39:22.890
so that we could compare and contrast what we saw.
780
00:39:22.890 --> 00:39:23.723
Next.
781
00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:27.900
And so I'm just gonna quickly go through
782
00:39:27.900 --> 00:39:30.930
some of what we've seen so far for the Flower Garden Banks.
783
00:39:30.930 --> 00:39:35.340
Basically we saw that the disease signs,
784
00:39:35.340 --> 00:39:37.470
the lesions that we saw on corals
785
00:39:37.470 --> 00:39:40.230
during the March 2023 cruise,
786
00:39:40.230 --> 00:39:42.810
were not primarily affecting the brain corals
787
00:39:42.810 --> 00:39:45.150
like they did in the USVI for SCTLD,
788
00:39:45.150 --> 00:39:47.760
but instead we mostly observed them on the star corals.
789
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:49.890
However, this was a little later
790
00:39:49.890 --> 00:39:51.840
since it was the spring of 2023
791
00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:55.170
than when the disease was initially detected,
792
00:39:55.170 --> 00:39:58.950
so it could have kind of moved to different corals.
793
00:39:58.950 --> 00:40:03.510
The lesions looked like the bright white of SCTLD
794
00:40:03.510 --> 00:40:05.040
or other types of diseases,
795
00:40:05.040 --> 00:40:07.680
but they typically only appeared on the colony edge
796
00:40:07.680 --> 00:40:11.760
instead of all over the corals like can happen with SCTLD.
797
00:40:11.760 --> 00:40:13.080
Next.
798
00:40:13.080 --> 00:40:16.530
And then again, we also saw that a few types of species
799
00:40:16.530 --> 00:40:18.390
were typically resisting,
800
00:40:18.390 --> 00:40:22.020
exhibiting disease signs similar to SCTLD.
801
00:40:22.020 --> 00:40:22.853
Next.
802
00:40:24.150 --> 00:40:28.020
And so in terms of the cellular molecular data,
803
00:40:28.020 --> 00:40:30.030
we have collected these samples
804
00:40:30.030 --> 00:40:32.640
and are looking at the gene expression signatures
805
00:40:32.640 --> 00:40:34.260
of the disease at the Flower Garden Banks,
806
00:40:34.260 --> 00:40:36.210
but we don't have those data to show you yet
807
00:40:36.210 --> 00:40:38.520
but they are in the pipeline.
808
00:40:38.520 --> 00:40:39.960
Next.
809
00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:42.240
And then I'll just quickly show you one of the things
810
00:40:42.240 --> 00:40:43.440
that we were able to look at.
811
00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:47.100
This picture that you can see, the big overall circle,
812
00:40:47.100 --> 00:40:50.550
is a really closeup image of the algal symbiont cell
813
00:40:50.550 --> 00:40:51.840
under the microscope.
814
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:56.010
And then this red arrow is pointing, next click,
815
00:40:56.010 --> 00:41:00.210
this red arrow is pointing to these concentric circles
816
00:41:00.210 --> 00:41:02.670
inside of a big empty vacuole
817
00:41:02.670 --> 00:41:06.900
which could be part of the cell becoming degraded.
818
00:41:06.900 --> 00:41:07.733
Next.
819
00:41:07.733 --> 00:41:10.410
And so these circular multilamellar bodies
820
00:41:10.410 --> 00:41:13.050
were really interesting, here you can see another one.
821
00:41:13.050 --> 00:41:16.230
And then you can see this compared to a diagram
822
00:41:16.230 --> 00:41:20.500
of what certain kinds of viral groups do often in plants
823
00:41:21.690 --> 00:41:24.900
when they are replicating and making more of themselves.
824
00:41:24.900 --> 00:41:26.040
They often,
825
00:41:26.040 --> 00:41:28.890
these known viruses that affect other organisms
826
00:41:28.890 --> 00:41:30.000
not on a reef,
827
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:33.780
will make these circular membranes like this
828
00:41:33.780 --> 00:41:37.740
to try to hide the replication of their viral components
829
00:41:37.740 --> 00:41:40.710
from the host to try to evade an immune response.
830
00:41:40.710 --> 00:41:42.540
So we thought that these images we were seeing
831
00:41:42.540 --> 00:41:44.820
were really interesting because they suggested
832
00:41:44.820 --> 00:41:47.640
that a viral response might be happening.
833
00:41:47.640 --> 00:41:49.260
However, at the same time,
834
00:41:49.260 --> 00:41:51.630
sometimes when cells are coming apart
835
00:41:51.630 --> 00:41:55.230
or have other features, you can't always,
836
00:41:55.230 --> 00:41:57.360
although this looks like it could be viral,
837
00:41:57.360 --> 00:42:01.110
we need to use molecular data to confirm
838
00:42:01.110 --> 00:42:03.848
that we see virus signatures that would match this.
839
00:42:03.848 --> 00:42:06.360
So it's a hypothesis, but we're not for sure.
840
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:07.193
Next.
841
00:42:08.037 --> 00:42:10.410
And here you can see more examples of this
842
00:42:10.410 --> 00:42:12.480
going from the top to the bottom.
843
00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:15.870
It's a zoom in and the arrows are often trying to show you.
844
00:42:15.870 --> 00:42:17.450
Basically in this graph,
845
00:42:17.450 --> 00:42:20.100
it's showing that these circular indications
846
00:42:20.100 --> 00:42:24.210
of these possible viruses were a lot more common,
847
00:42:24.210 --> 00:42:26.557
that's this higher rightmost box,
848
00:42:26.557 --> 00:42:29.880
they were a lot more common in samples of disease lesions
849
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:32.907
from the Flower Garden Banks, than from samples,
850
00:42:32.907 --> 00:42:35.862
different kinds of apparently healthy tissue samples
851
00:42:35.862 --> 00:42:37.110
at the Flower Garden Banks.
852
00:42:37.110 --> 00:42:38.130
So once again,
853
00:42:38.130 --> 00:42:40.510
although we're not totally sure this is viral,
854
00:42:40.510 --> 00:42:43.380
there's an interesting association of these features
855
00:42:43.380 --> 00:42:46.650
in the algal symbiont cells with the disease lesions.
856
00:42:46.650 --> 00:42:47.483
Next.
857
00:42:53.160 --> 00:42:53.993
Okay.
858
00:42:53.993 --> 00:42:56.490
And so now putting everything all together,
859
00:42:56.490 --> 00:42:59.220
what we will eventually try to do
860
00:42:59.220 --> 00:43:02.790
is use novel machine learning approaches
861
00:43:02.790 --> 00:43:05.130
with all of these types of disease traits
862
00:43:05.130 --> 00:43:08.367
that we have been telling you about in this presentation.
863
00:43:08.367 --> 00:43:12.543
So for example, algae type, viruses, host gene expression,
864
00:43:13.530 --> 00:43:16.470
and other things, putting everything all together
865
00:43:16.470 --> 00:43:20.437
to see if we can identify patterns in what signs
866
00:43:25.380 --> 00:43:28.033
are associated with one disease versus another.
867
00:43:28.033 --> 00:43:30.090
So basically, the green, the yellow,
868
00:43:30.090 --> 00:43:34.140
and the blue different spaces on this overall model space
869
00:43:34.140 --> 00:43:37.350
are kind of where, if you crunched everything down
870
00:43:37.350 --> 00:43:41.130
for individual samples, where it would fall out in space.
871
00:43:41.130 --> 00:43:46.020
And so things that fall out in the green space
872
00:43:46.020 --> 00:43:48.307
might be all like this known disease A,
873
00:43:48.307 --> 00:43:50.850
versus things that fall out in the yellow space
874
00:43:50.850 --> 00:43:55.850
might be all similar from colonies affected by SCTLD.
875
00:43:56.040 --> 00:44:00.300
So since the traits of known diseases tend to fall out
876
00:44:00.300 --> 00:44:01.890
in the same places,
877
00:44:01.890 --> 00:44:04.478
then we can take this unknown disease
878
00:44:04.478 --> 00:44:07.140
and collapse all the traits from samples
879
00:44:07.140 --> 00:44:08.995
from the Flower Garden Banks
880
00:44:08.995 --> 00:44:11.670
and see what they're similar to in this space.
881
00:44:11.670 --> 00:44:16.670
So in this example where each one of these little circles
882
00:44:16.920 --> 00:44:19.710
might be a sample of a diseased colony
883
00:44:19.710 --> 00:44:21.540
from the Flower Garden Banks,
884
00:44:21.540 --> 00:44:23.940
if we add them to this model trait space
885
00:44:23.940 --> 00:44:27.780
and they all cluster next to disease B,
886
00:44:27.780 --> 00:44:29.820
then that might help us recognize,
887
00:44:29.820 --> 00:44:33.990
okay, this Flower Garden Banks disease is likely disease B.
888
00:44:33.990 --> 00:44:34.823
Next slide.
889
00:44:35.670 --> 00:44:38.490
But if we take our Flower Garden Banks samples
890
00:44:38.490 --> 00:44:40.267
from the diseased colonies
891
00:44:40.267 --> 00:44:42.510
and they fall out in the SCTLD space,
892
00:44:42.510 --> 00:44:44.740
then that might help us recognize
893
00:44:46.380 --> 00:44:49.442
that this mysterious disease is SCTLD
894
00:44:49.442 --> 00:44:51.090
at the Flower Garden Banks.
895
00:44:51.090 --> 00:44:51.923
Next.
896
00:44:53.130 --> 00:44:56.490
But it's possible that the Flower Garden Banks samples
897
00:44:56.490 --> 00:44:59.130
that we have, that the traits of the diseases,
898
00:44:59.130 --> 00:45:02.040
the disease samples that we've collected,
899
00:45:02.040 --> 00:45:05.817
they all fall out in a completely different space
900
00:45:05.817 --> 00:45:07.500
as a result of this model.
901
00:45:07.500 --> 00:45:10.890
And that would suggest that this is a completely new disease
902
00:45:10.890 --> 00:45:13.590
that people have not documented previously
903
00:45:13.590 --> 00:45:14.850
at the Flower Garden Banks.
904
00:45:14.850 --> 00:45:16.650
So we don't have the answer to this yet,
905
00:45:16.650 --> 00:45:19.530
but this is where we're going with all of this data
906
00:45:19.530 --> 00:45:23.673
and we hope to be able to have the results of this soon.
907
00:45:24.840 --> 00:45:25.673
Next.
908
00:45:26.550 --> 00:45:27.945
So as an overview,
909
00:45:27.945 --> 00:45:30.418
hopefully what you will take away from this
910
00:45:30.418 --> 00:45:32.583
is that we are getting better and better
911
00:45:32.583 --> 00:45:35.626
at comprehensively figuring out
912
00:45:35.626 --> 00:45:38.100
what makes up a coral disease sign.
913
00:45:38.100 --> 00:45:41.975
But we still have more that we need to learn
914
00:45:41.975 --> 00:45:44.340
about coral diseases, and in particular,
915
00:45:44.340 --> 00:45:47.070
about what the Flower Garden Banks disease is.
916
00:45:47.070 --> 00:45:48.870
So in terms of the disease ecology
917
00:45:48.870 --> 00:45:50.790
and how the disease signs looked,
918
00:45:50.790 --> 00:45:54.510
in March 2023, the disease signs at the Flower Garden Banks
919
00:45:54.510 --> 00:45:57.120
did look different from SCTLD.
920
00:45:57.120 --> 00:46:00.220
We're still waiting on the cellular and molecular data
921
00:46:00.220 --> 00:46:03.270
to inform our final machine learning model.
922
00:46:03.270 --> 00:46:07.740
And we saw interesting signs of potential viral infection,
923
00:46:07.740 --> 00:46:10.260
but we need an additional data type
924
00:46:10.260 --> 00:46:13.230
to confirm that the images that are virus-like
925
00:46:13.230 --> 00:46:16.023
that we saw really are viral in nature.
926
00:46:17.040 --> 00:46:17.873
Next.
927
00:46:17.873 --> 00:46:21.112
And so we have two additional research cruises coming up
928
00:46:21.112 --> 00:46:24.420
where we're gonna further follow up on the health status
929
00:46:24.420 --> 00:46:27.450
and the condition of these colonies.
930
00:46:27.450 --> 00:46:28.770
Next.
931
00:46:32.160 --> 00:46:33.638
Hi, thanks.
932
00:46:34.740 --> 00:46:39.740
One of my lab's jobs in these massive collaborations
933
00:46:40.080 --> 00:46:43.560
is to try and understand the movement of these diseases
934
00:46:43.560 --> 00:46:44.820
at various scales.
935
00:46:44.820 --> 00:46:47.280
So for example, across a coral colony,
936
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:49.320
between coral colonies,
937
00:46:49.320 --> 00:46:53.580
or between reefs that are separated by large distances.
938
00:46:53.580 --> 00:46:56.615
And one way we do that is with simulation models.
939
00:46:56.615 --> 00:46:59.940
And what we know because these reefs are super isolated
940
00:46:59.940 --> 00:47:02.410
up in the Flower Garden Banks, is that this mystery disease
941
00:47:02.410 --> 00:47:04.770
really only had a number of ways it could have arrived
942
00:47:04.770 --> 00:47:06.480
if it came from somewhere else,
943
00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:08.772
and that's either through ocean currents
944
00:47:08.772 --> 00:47:11.108
or potentially through human activity.
945
00:47:11.108 --> 00:47:13.020
There is some evidence, for example,
946
00:47:13.020 --> 00:47:15.898
with some other coral diseases or disease outbreaks
947
00:47:15.898 --> 00:47:18.420
that humans have facilitated diseases jumping
948
00:47:18.420 --> 00:47:22.560
over large spaces in a sort of short order.
949
00:47:22.560 --> 00:47:23.393
Next.
950
00:47:27.960 --> 00:47:30.817
So one way that we're addressing this question
951
00:47:30.817 --> 00:47:34.170
is through simulation modeling of sort of particles
952
00:47:34.170 --> 00:47:36.930
in a virtual space or a virtual ocean,
953
00:47:36.930 --> 00:47:38.848
and these particles represent
954
00:47:38.848 --> 00:47:41.238
whatever this disease agent may be.
955
00:47:41.238 --> 00:47:43.787
And so we're trying to synthesize the information
956
00:47:43.787 --> 00:47:46.290
from all of these studies into these models.
957
00:47:46.290 --> 00:47:50.793
And in this particular example, my student Gabby Carpenter,
958
00:47:52.560 --> 00:47:56.790
did some backtracking from the Flower Garden Banks
959
00:47:56.790 --> 00:47:59.820
to try and understand potential sources of disease
960
00:47:59.820 --> 00:48:02.310
at other reefs that might be upstream.
961
00:48:02.310 --> 00:48:04.260
And let's see if you can click
962
00:48:04.260 --> 00:48:06.750
and get this video to play, we'll see.
963
00:48:06.750 --> 00:48:08.675
All the way on the right here,
964
00:48:10.080 --> 00:48:12.935
we've got one of these backtracking simulations
965
00:48:12.935 --> 00:48:14.670
from the summer of 2022
966
00:48:14.670 --> 00:48:16.500
when this disease was first observed.
967
00:48:16.500 --> 00:48:18.840
And what you see is the density of particles
968
00:48:18.840 --> 00:48:21.782
as they're being backtracked through ocean currents.
969
00:48:21.782 --> 00:48:24.750
And those red lines indicate 15, 30 and 60 days
970
00:48:24.750 --> 00:48:25.740
of dispersal.
971
00:48:25.740 --> 00:48:29.190
And you can see that during this particular year or summer,
972
00:48:29.190 --> 00:48:31.278
there was actually a lot of opportunity
973
00:48:31.278 --> 00:48:33.030
for potential disease agents
974
00:48:33.030 --> 00:48:35.718
to come from upstream reefs in Veracruz,
975
00:48:35.718 --> 00:48:37.230
or in the Yucatan Peninsula,
976
00:48:37.230 --> 00:48:40.590
or potentially even Cuba and Mesoamerica.
977
00:48:40.590 --> 00:48:42.293
And what's really interesting
978
00:48:42.293 --> 00:48:44.920
as Gabby's continuing to do backtracking
979
00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:47.280
in years where we haven't seen disease
980
00:48:47.280 --> 00:48:48.720
to see if there are differences
981
00:48:48.720 --> 00:48:50.725
between when diseases are observed
982
00:48:50.725 --> 00:48:53.173
at the Flower Garden Banks and when they're not.
983
00:48:53.173 --> 00:48:55.170
And it appears that these years
984
00:48:55.170 --> 00:48:57.720
when the loop current is particularly weak
985
00:48:57.720 --> 00:49:01.380
and it doesn't come up into the Gulf of Mexico very far,
986
00:49:01.380 --> 00:49:05.160
this actually facilitates connectivity across the Gulf
987
00:49:05.160 --> 00:49:07.500
and to upstream reefs.
988
00:49:07.500 --> 00:49:12.500
And this summer of 2022 when the disease appeared
989
00:49:12.510 --> 00:49:15.720
was one of these low intrusion years.
990
00:49:15.720 --> 00:49:17.266
Could you click, next?
991
00:49:19.260 --> 00:49:20.550
Oh, one more time.
992
00:49:20.550 --> 00:49:21.990
There you go.
993
00:49:21.990 --> 00:49:23.745
And these conditions
994
00:49:23.745 --> 00:49:28.650
of a low energy loop current not coming very far up
995
00:49:28.650 --> 00:49:30.225
into the Gulf of Mexico,
996
00:49:30.225 --> 00:49:33.358
these conditions are actually potentially increasing.
997
00:49:33.358 --> 00:49:37.078
So as the climate warms and as the Gulf Stream weakens,
998
00:49:37.078 --> 00:49:40.290
you may have heard about that in the news for other reasons,
999
00:49:40.290 --> 00:49:43.200
it actually also results in a weakened loop current.
1000
00:49:43.200 --> 00:49:45.810
And so it's expected that these conditions
1001
00:49:45.810 --> 00:49:47.498
that may be contributing
1002
00:49:47.498 --> 00:49:50.152
to diseases appearing at these very isolated reefs
1003
00:49:50.152 --> 00:49:52.980
actually may be increasing as the climate changes.
1004
00:49:52.980 --> 00:49:53.813
Next.
1005
00:49:55.770 --> 00:49:59.070
And so we're trying to combine all the information
1006
00:49:59.070 --> 00:50:01.560
that Laura and Adrienne went over
1007
00:50:01.560 --> 00:50:05.220
into these really big models that combine hydrodynamics
1008
00:50:05.220 --> 00:50:08.007
and all of the biology of the corals,
1009
00:50:08.007 --> 00:50:09.780
and potentially the behavior
1010
00:50:09.780 --> 00:50:11.580
of whatever these pathogens may be.
1011
00:50:11.580 --> 00:50:12.960
And we're doing this all over the place.
1012
00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:14.602
We're doing this in the US Virgin Islands,
1013
00:50:14.602 --> 00:50:16.270
we're doing this at the Flower Garden Banks,
1014
00:50:16.270 --> 00:50:18.900
and we've also done it in Florida with SCTLD.
1015
00:50:18.900 --> 00:50:23.580
And what's very cool is we're trying to model these diseases
1016
00:50:23.580 --> 00:50:25.590
at the scale of individual reefs,
1017
00:50:25.590 --> 00:50:28.920
and then also model dispersal between the reefs
1018
00:50:28.920 --> 00:50:31.775
using hydrodynamics.
1019
00:50:31.775 --> 00:50:34.410
And our models are actually getting pretty good
1020
00:50:34.410 --> 00:50:37.170
and we're able to predict, using these models,
1021
00:50:37.170 --> 00:50:40.367
predict the timing of the arrival of diseases
1022
00:50:40.367 --> 00:50:42.630
in areas where it was really observed.
1023
00:50:42.630 --> 00:50:44.782
And so we think we may be able
1024
00:50:44.782 --> 00:50:47.310
to apply this framework in the future,
1025
00:50:47.310 --> 00:50:51.000
not just to explain what we've seen,
1026
00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:54.840
but potentially to act quickly when we see new diseases
1027
00:50:54.840 --> 00:50:57.870
to predict how they'll get to new places and when,
1028
00:50:57.870 --> 00:51:01.350
and potentially apply mitigations rapidly.
1029
00:51:01.350 --> 00:51:02.667
Next.
1030
00:51:02.667 --> 00:51:05.760
And so with that I'm gonna wrap everything up a little bit
1031
00:51:05.760 --> 00:51:08.935
and just thank everybody, thank all of our collaborators,
1032
00:51:08.935 --> 00:51:11.070
many of whom are not listed here.
1033
00:51:11.070 --> 00:51:14.730
And of course all of our students past and present,
1034
00:51:14.730 --> 00:51:17.632
Moody Gardens, the sanctuary, NOAA,
1035
00:51:17.632 --> 00:51:19.380
I'm sure I'm missing people,
1036
00:51:19.380 --> 00:51:23.310
but these are the results of huge collaborations.
1037
00:51:23.310 --> 00:51:25.293
And so we wanna say thank you.
1038
00:51:27.630 --> 00:51:30.390
Thank you Dan, Adrienne, and Laura,
1039
00:51:30.390 --> 00:51:32.485
that was very interesting.
1040
00:51:32.485 --> 00:51:34.830
Laura, if you could not move that screen,
1041
00:51:34.830 --> 00:51:36.750
just leave that up there please.
1042
00:51:36.750 --> 00:51:38.250
Thank you.
1043
00:51:38.250 --> 00:51:39.622
So this is the point, folks,
1044
00:51:39.622 --> 00:51:41.910
where we take a few question and answers from the audience.
1045
00:51:41.910 --> 00:51:44.163
So if you do have questions you'd like to ask
1046
00:51:44.163 --> 00:51:46.170
of any of the three of these folks,
1047
00:51:46.170 --> 00:51:49.323
please go ahead and enter them into the questions box
1048
00:51:49.323 --> 00:51:50.610
in your control panel
1049
00:51:50.610 --> 00:51:52.350
over on the right-hand side of your screen.
1050
00:51:52.350 --> 00:51:54.210
If you don't see your control panel,
1051
00:51:54.210 --> 00:51:56.730
you'll see a tiny little bar on the top right corner
1052
00:51:56.730 --> 00:51:57.838
with an orange arrow.
1053
00:51:57.838 --> 00:51:59.750
Click on that arrow and that'll open the bar for you,
1054
00:51:59.750 --> 00:52:02.070
and then you can find your questions panel,
1055
00:52:02.070 --> 00:52:04.440
I see a few of you have found it already.
1056
00:52:04.440 --> 00:52:06.462
And we are gonna ask questions.
1057
00:52:06.462 --> 00:52:09.083
We've just got about five to seven minutes
1058
00:52:09.083 --> 00:52:10.920
before we're supposed to wrap this up,
1059
00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:13.598
so we're gonna see how many questions we can get through.
1060
00:52:13.598 --> 00:52:16.650
If we don't get through to your question today,
1061
00:52:16.650 --> 00:52:19.577
we have a habit of making a list of those questions
1062
00:52:19.577 --> 00:52:21.540
and sending them on to our presenters
1063
00:52:21.540 --> 00:52:23.815
to see if they can help us out with answering them
1064
00:52:23.815 --> 00:52:26.987
after the fact, and then we will email those out to you.
1065
00:52:26.987 --> 00:52:30.090
So for our presenters, the first question is,
1066
00:52:30.090 --> 00:52:33.003
what type of mitigation steps have been taken?
1067
00:52:39.510 --> 00:52:42.940
Well, I can say a little bit
1068
00:52:47.490 --> 00:52:49.480
in terms of what I'm aware of.
1069
00:52:52.890 --> 00:52:56.010
With Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease,
1070
00:52:56.010 --> 00:52:59.220
different types of mitigations have been assessed
1071
00:52:59.220 --> 00:53:02.040
with trial and error and experiments in the field,
1072
00:53:02.040 --> 00:53:04.492
and one of the things that can be done
1073
00:53:04.492 --> 00:53:09.200
is applying antibiotics in this sort of paste medium.
1074
00:53:10.770 --> 00:53:13.103
There are pros and cons of doing this.
1075
00:53:13.103 --> 00:53:16.162
It can limit the spread of SCTLD lesions,
1076
00:53:16.162 --> 00:53:19.170
but at the same time you also wanna be really careful
1077
00:53:19.170 --> 00:53:22.230
about releasing antibiotics into the environment.
1078
00:53:22.230 --> 00:53:26.070
So I think one of the mitigations that has been considered
1079
00:53:26.070 --> 00:53:28.720
is the application of these antibiotics
1080
00:53:29.670 --> 00:53:33.120
in the event that this is determined to be SCTLD.
1081
00:53:33.120 --> 00:53:35.850
But at the same time, one of the challenges
1082
00:53:35.850 --> 00:53:39.780
is that the Flower Garden Banks is far offshore and deep,
1083
00:53:39.780 --> 00:53:41.310
a relatively deep reef,
1084
00:53:41.310 --> 00:53:46.310
and so scuba diver bottom time on the reef is limited
1085
00:53:47.280 --> 00:53:49.290
compared to a near shore reef.
1086
00:53:49.290 --> 00:53:53.160
So that's part of these potential mitigations,
1087
00:53:53.160 --> 00:53:55.770
and whether or not to enact them
1088
00:53:55.770 --> 00:53:57.990
is one of the primary motivators
1089
00:53:57.990 --> 00:54:01.623
to try and pin down exactly what disease is present.
1090
00:54:03.330 --> 00:54:04.710
Thank you.
1091
00:54:04.710 --> 00:54:07.410
Dan, the next question is specifically for you.
1092
00:54:07.410 --> 00:54:09.573
Why is it that a weaker loop current
1093
00:54:09.573 --> 00:54:13.440
actually encourages particle movement further into the gulf?
1094
00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:15.083
Yeah, so this is interesting
1095
00:54:15.083 --> 00:54:17.115
'cause it's not what I would've assumed,
1096
00:54:17.115 --> 00:54:21.290
but the loop current kind of divides the east and west gulf.
1097
00:54:22.638 --> 00:54:24.990
And so when the loop current is strong
1098
00:54:24.990 --> 00:54:26.518
and coming up really high,
1099
00:54:26.518 --> 00:54:29.100
you do have the potential from conductivity.
1100
00:54:29.100 --> 00:54:31.260
But the loop current is so strong
1101
00:54:31.260 --> 00:54:34.380
that really that potential is limited
1102
00:54:34.380 --> 00:54:37.502
to these spinning loop current eddies
1103
00:54:37.502 --> 00:54:40.042
that get shed off of the edge of the loop current.
1104
00:54:40.042 --> 00:54:42.090
Which are actually, it's pretty rare,
1105
00:54:42.090 --> 00:54:44.127
relatively rare that those eddies
1106
00:54:44.127 --> 00:54:46.890
are going to contact Flower Garden Banks.
1107
00:54:46.890 --> 00:54:50.115
As opposed to years when you have a low intrusion
1108
00:54:50.115 --> 00:54:51.480
of that loop current,
1109
00:54:51.480 --> 00:54:54.390
you get sort of a lot of sloshing back and forth
1110
00:54:54.390 --> 00:54:57.725
of water moving back up and down, north and south,
1111
00:54:57.725 --> 00:54:59.340
from the northwest gulf,
1112
00:54:59.340 --> 00:55:01.827
which is where the Flower Garden Banks are,
1113
00:55:01.827 --> 00:55:04.350
and then the reefs in Mexico and the Yucatan.
1114
00:55:04.350 --> 00:55:05.848
So it was a little surprising,
1115
00:55:05.848 --> 00:55:07.710
but it's a very consistent result
1116
00:55:07.710 --> 00:55:10.116
when we do these simulations.
1117
00:55:12.797 --> 00:55:14.063
Thank you.
1118
00:55:14.063 --> 00:55:16.120
We actually have a page on our website
1119
00:55:16.120 --> 00:55:18.394
that tells a little bit more about the loop current,
1120
00:55:18.394 --> 00:55:21.810
I'll throw that link real quick in the answer box there
1121
00:55:21.810 --> 00:55:23.670
in a few seconds.
1122
00:55:23.670 --> 00:55:26.800
Next question, top of the list here.
1123
00:55:26.800 --> 00:55:28.312
Will you keep us updated
1124
00:55:28.312 --> 00:55:31.350
on what type of disease the Flower Garden Banks has?
1125
00:55:31.350 --> 00:55:32.610
Of course we will.
1126
00:55:32.610 --> 00:55:33.940
'Cause they're gonna tell us
1127
00:55:33.940 --> 00:55:36.850
and we're gonna be happy to share whatever it is
1128
00:55:36.850 --> 00:55:39.870
'cause everyone has wanted to know for so long.
1129
00:55:40.782 --> 00:55:42.150
For the presenters,
1130
00:55:42.150 --> 00:55:45.073
how easily can the coral recover after being treated?
1131
00:55:45.073 --> 00:55:48.258
Would a probiotic or bacterial replacement be helpful?
1132
00:55:55.920 --> 00:55:58.510
Laura, I don't know if you're there,
1133
00:55:58.510 --> 00:56:01.350
but if at any point you wanna jump in, go ahead.
1134
00:56:01.350 --> 00:56:05.673
I think that it's interesting.
1135
00:56:07.350 --> 00:56:10.620
I would say part of it depends on what we find out
1136
00:56:10.620 --> 00:56:12.780
the nature of this disease is.
1137
00:56:12.780 --> 00:56:15.900
Sometimes the same with humans.
1138
00:56:15.900 --> 00:56:20.593
You might have an initial problem with your health,
1139
00:56:21.930 --> 00:56:26.850
and then get a secondary infection down the road, right?
1140
00:56:26.850 --> 00:56:29.777
So one of the reasons that these diseases
1141
00:56:29.777 --> 00:56:31.560
are difficult to understand
1142
00:56:31.560 --> 00:56:34.050
and that it can be difficult to pin down
1143
00:56:34.050 --> 00:56:36.530
what the cause of a particular disease is
1144
00:56:36.530 --> 00:56:39.450
is that there can be multiple things
1145
00:56:39.450 --> 00:56:43.380
that start happening decreasing colony health.
1146
00:56:43.380 --> 00:56:46.170
So I think in terms of adding a probiotic
1147
00:56:46.170 --> 00:56:49.873
or adding an antibacterial to colonies,
1148
00:56:49.873 --> 00:56:51.900
part of how likely that is to help
1149
00:56:51.900 --> 00:56:56.497
is what is actually causing these disease signs
1150
00:56:56.497 --> 00:56:59.250
at the Flower Garden Banks in the first place.
1151
00:56:59.250 --> 00:57:01.353
And then I think another component
1152
00:57:01.353 --> 00:57:03.185
that might be really important
1153
00:57:03.185 --> 00:57:05.043
is how fast the disease lesion
1154
00:57:05.043 --> 00:57:09.390
is moving across the colony at a particular time.
1155
00:57:09.390 --> 00:57:14.390
So in terms of, fortunately from what we had seen
1156
00:57:14.460 --> 00:57:16.830
during the March 2023 cruise,
1157
00:57:16.830 --> 00:57:19.800
the lesions that we were seeing were not moving
1158
00:57:19.800 --> 00:57:23.100
as quickly as, for example, SCTLD lesions
1159
00:57:23.100 --> 00:57:25.050
in the US Virgin Islands.
1160
00:57:25.050 --> 00:57:28.500
I think if you're thinking about a large scale
1161
00:57:28.500 --> 00:57:32.130
sort of reef-wide mitigation response
1162
00:57:32.130 --> 00:57:35.748
where you're trying to give antibacterials
1163
00:57:35.748 --> 00:57:38.352
or probiotics to many colonies on the reef
1164
00:57:38.352 --> 00:57:40.770
that are affected by lesions at once,
1165
00:57:40.770 --> 00:57:43.680
if the lesions are moving really quickly,
1166
00:57:43.680 --> 00:57:45.690
then it's harder to have
1167
00:57:45.690 --> 00:57:48.870
a mitigating effect overall with your response
1168
00:57:48.870 --> 00:57:51.733
compared to if lesions are moving more slowly.
1169
00:57:51.733 --> 00:57:55.800
So if disease lesions continue to be seen
1170
00:57:55.800 --> 00:57:58.275
and they continue to move more slowly
1171
00:57:58.275 --> 00:58:01.530
and it's determined that adding a probiotic
1172
00:58:01.530 --> 00:58:05.850
or an antibacterial would be a good idea,
1173
00:58:05.850 --> 00:58:09.450
then at least with slower moving lesions,
1174
00:58:09.450 --> 00:58:13.800
the mitigation might have more time to work.
1175
00:58:13.800 --> 00:58:18.150
Another detail and challenge I think at the sanctuary
1176
00:58:18.150 --> 00:58:21.210
is that these are relatively deep reefs,
1177
00:58:21.210 --> 00:58:25.200
and corals that are deep grow notoriously slow, right?
1178
00:58:25.200 --> 00:58:28.860
So even if those lesions stop,
1179
00:58:28.860 --> 00:58:31.500
the rate at which they're going to recover
1180
00:58:31.500 --> 00:58:33.720
is probably going to be slow,
1181
00:58:33.720 --> 00:58:37.278
although I don't think we've done that research exactly.
1182
00:58:39.180 --> 00:58:41.130
But any loss of coral cover
1183
00:58:41.130 --> 00:58:43.770
at a mesophotic sort of deeper reef
1184
00:58:43.770 --> 00:58:46.521
is gonna take a long time to recover.
1185
00:58:48.510 --> 00:58:49.939
Thank you.
1186
00:58:49.939 --> 00:58:52.975
And we are running really close to the end of our time.
1187
00:58:52.975 --> 00:58:55.030
We're gonna take one more question.
1188
00:58:55.030 --> 00:58:57.765
So we're gonna probably go a few minutes over, folks,
1189
00:58:57.765 --> 00:59:01.153
past our one hour, but I think this is important.
1190
00:59:01.153 --> 00:59:02.520
This last question,
1191
00:59:02.520 --> 00:59:05.883
is histology being done on the Flower Garden Banks corals,
1192
00:59:05.883 --> 00:59:08.940
or is it only being studied at the molecular?
1193
00:59:08.940 --> 00:59:10.920
I guess I'll take that one.
1194
00:59:10.920 --> 00:59:15.920
Yeah, we have done a whole lot of coral histopathology
1195
00:59:15.930 --> 00:59:19.350
from a whole range of samples from different locations
1196
00:59:19.350 --> 00:59:23.610
including each of these missions to the Flower Garden Banks.
1197
00:59:23.610 --> 00:59:27.205
My student, Ashley Rosin, has been leading that charge,
1198
00:59:27.205 --> 00:59:30.420
although many people in the lab have been working on it,
1199
00:59:30.420 --> 00:59:32.730
and she recently defended her dissertation
1200
00:59:32.730 --> 00:59:34.830
and hopefully will publish that work very soon.
1201
00:59:34.830 --> 00:59:37.147
But some of that work has been featured also
1202
00:59:37.147 --> 00:59:39.732
in these collaborative publications that have come out,
1203
00:59:39.732 --> 00:59:41.997
for example, from the US Virgin Islands.
1204
00:59:41.997 --> 00:59:45.398
So histology is being done and it looks like the lesions,
1205
00:59:45.398 --> 00:59:48.450
and I don't want to put words in Ashley's mouth here,
1206
00:59:48.450 --> 00:59:50.940
but it looks like the lesions from the corals
1207
00:59:50.940 --> 00:59:55.470
at Flower Garden Banks do look different histopathologically
1208
00:59:55.470 --> 00:59:59.385
from the SCTLD lesions that we've seen both in Florida
1209
00:59:59.385 --> 01:00:01.410
and in the US Virgin Islands.
1210
01:00:01.410 --> 01:00:04.650
So that lends more credence to this hypothesis
1211
01:00:04.650 --> 01:00:08.913
that this may not be SCTLD, but the jury is still out.
1212
01:00:11.010 --> 01:00:12.270
Thank you.
1213
01:00:12.270 --> 01:00:13.138
Well, folks,
1214
01:00:13.138 --> 01:00:16.050
I think that's gonna wrap up our question and answer period.
1215
01:00:16.050 --> 01:00:18.395
We don't have a ton more questions
1216
01:00:18.395 --> 01:00:20.490
so I will be sure to type those up
1217
01:00:20.490 --> 01:00:21.720
and get those out to you folks.
1218
01:00:21.720 --> 01:00:23.377
If you could help us with answering them
1219
01:00:23.377 --> 01:00:26.160
a little bit after the fact, that would be wonderful.
1220
01:00:26.160 --> 01:00:28.002
And now I'm gonna go back
1221
01:00:28.002 --> 01:00:30.880
and take the screen back to my control,
1222
01:00:34.085 --> 01:00:35.970
and we'll wrap things up here.
1223
01:00:35.970 --> 01:00:39.825
So just a reminder, let me see, show my screen, come on.
1224
01:00:39.825 --> 01:00:40.883
There we go.
1225
01:00:40.883 --> 01:00:41.716
Nope.
1226
01:00:49.020 --> 01:00:50.190
Is it showing yet?
1227
01:00:50.190 --> 01:00:51.360
There it is, okay.
1228
01:00:51.360 --> 01:00:54.600
So just a reminder, these are our three presenters today.
1229
01:00:54.600 --> 01:00:57.838
Adrienne Correa from University of California-Berkeley,
1230
01:00:57.838 --> 01:01:00.930
Laura Mydlarz from University of Texas at Arlington,
1231
01:01:00.930 --> 01:01:04.110
and Dan Holstein from Louisiana State University.
1232
01:01:04.110 --> 01:01:06.600
A big thank you to all three of you.
1233
01:01:06.600 --> 01:01:09.334
This was a little bit complicated doing it with three,
1234
01:01:09.334 --> 01:01:12.095
we appreciate how well you organized yourselves
1235
01:01:12.095 --> 01:01:13.147
ahead of time,
1236
01:01:13.147 --> 01:01:16.500
and appreciate you all giving us a multifaceted look
1237
01:01:16.500 --> 01:01:19.840
at this whole coral disease dilemma, mystery,
1238
01:01:19.840 --> 01:01:21.630
whatever you wanna call it.
1239
01:01:21.630 --> 01:01:23.520
We're all dying to know the answers,
1240
01:01:23.520 --> 01:01:25.230
but we know it's gonna take time.
1241
01:01:25.230 --> 01:01:27.010
It already has taken a bunch of time,
1242
01:01:27.010 --> 01:01:28.980
but we want good answers, right?
1243
01:01:28.980 --> 01:01:31.383
So science takes a bit sometimes.
1244
01:01:32.340 --> 01:01:35.040
And thank you to all of you out there
1245
01:01:35.040 --> 01:01:36.750
in our audience this evening.
1246
01:01:36.750 --> 01:01:39.240
We really appreciate you being here,
1247
01:01:39.240 --> 01:01:42.000
for attending our Seaside Chats presentation
1248
01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:44.040
all about Chasing Microbes
1249
01:01:44.040 --> 01:01:46.830
and diving into the mystery of coral disease.
1250
01:01:46.830 --> 01:01:49.008
This is the last of our presentations
1251
01:01:49.008 --> 01:01:51.570
for the 2024 Seaside Chats season,
1252
01:01:51.570 --> 01:01:54.185
so please check back with us next January
1253
01:01:54.185 --> 01:01:56.651
and see what we have in store for 2025.
1254
01:02:00.953 --> 01:02:02.400
As mentioned earlier,
1255
01:02:02.400 --> 01:02:05.283
we will attempt to get the remaining questions answered
1256
01:02:05.283 --> 01:02:07.470
after the webinar ends and email out the responses.
1257
01:02:07.470 --> 01:02:09.780
For those of you who were on the webinar with us last week,
1258
01:02:09.780 --> 01:02:11.760
I just emailed those out late this evening
1259
01:02:11.760 --> 01:02:13.500
just before this chat started,
1260
01:02:13.500 --> 01:02:15.900
so last week's answers have gone out.
1261
01:02:15.900 --> 01:02:17.805
For those who would like to learn more on their own,
1262
01:02:17.805 --> 01:02:20.517
we have provided a document of resource links
1263
01:02:20.517 --> 01:02:22.650
in the handout pane of the control panel.
1264
01:02:22.650 --> 01:02:24.532
And if you haven't yet downloaded it,
1265
01:02:24.532 --> 01:02:26.940
this would be a really good time to do that.
1266
01:02:26.940 --> 01:02:28.287
If it's not working for you,
1267
01:02:28.287 --> 01:02:30.780
'cause we hear that happens sometimes, don't worry,
1268
01:02:30.780 --> 01:02:33.660
when we send out certificates and et cetera at the end
1269
01:02:33.660 --> 01:02:35.097
after this webinar,
1270
01:02:35.097 --> 01:02:38.130
we'll also send out an updated version of the resource sheet
1271
01:02:38.130 --> 01:02:39.760
adding in a few things that came up
1272
01:02:39.760 --> 01:02:41.430
during tonight's conversation.
1273
01:02:41.430 --> 01:02:44.520
And as always, we welcome your feedback and questions.
1274
01:02:44.520 --> 01:02:46.410
You can submit input by replying
1275
01:02:46.410 --> 01:02:49.557
to the follow-up email you'll receive after the webinar,
1276
01:02:49.557 --> 01:02:53.880
or by emailing us at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1277
01:02:53.880 --> 01:02:56.130
We also invite you to visit us on the web,
1278
01:02:56.130 --> 01:02:58.970
again, flowergarden.noaa.gov, next January
1279
01:02:58.970 --> 01:03:00.988
to make sure you know what's happening
1280
01:03:00.988 --> 01:03:03.570
with the next round of Seaside Chats.
1281
01:03:03.570 --> 01:03:05.728
Today's presentation has also been part
1282
01:03:05.728 --> 01:03:08.580
of the National Marine Sanctuaries webinar series.
1283
01:03:08.580 --> 01:03:11.280
And while Seaside Chats lasts just one month,
1284
01:03:11.280 --> 01:03:14.220
our national webinar series continues throughout the year
1285
01:03:14.220 --> 01:03:17.490
to provide you with educational and scientific expertise,
1286
01:03:17.490 --> 01:03:19.110
resources and training
1287
01:03:19.110 --> 01:03:21.420
to support ocean and climate literacy.
1288
01:03:21.420 --> 01:03:24.660
Be sure to check the website for recordings of past webinars
1289
01:03:24.660 --> 01:03:26.700
and a schedule of what's to come.
1290
01:03:26.700 --> 01:03:29.610
And this link is also available in that resource page
1291
01:03:29.610 --> 01:03:31.470
that we'll be emailing out to you.
1292
01:03:31.470 --> 01:03:34.530
As a reminder, we will share the recording of this webinar
1293
01:03:34.530 --> 01:03:36.990
via the National Marine Sanctuaries website,
1294
01:03:36.990 --> 01:03:38.357
and with links from
1295
01:03:38.357 --> 01:03:42.930
the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary website.
1296
01:03:42.930 --> 01:03:46.170
Following the webinar, attendees will receive a PDF copy
1297
01:03:46.170 --> 01:03:48.060
of a certificate of attendance.
1298
01:03:48.060 --> 01:03:50.638
This provides documentation for one hour
1299
01:03:50.638 --> 01:03:53.580
of professional development for today's presentation.
1300
01:03:53.580 --> 01:03:56.910
This includes our Texas CPE provider number
1301
01:03:56.910 --> 01:03:59.280
for those of you who are Texas educators,
1302
01:03:59.280 --> 01:04:01.830
and if you are an educator outside of Texas,
1303
01:04:01.830 --> 01:04:03.363
please use this certificate
1304
01:04:03.363 --> 01:04:05.910
to help get your hours approved in your district.
1305
01:04:05.910 --> 01:04:09.000
If you require additional information in that respect,
1306
01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:13.253
please contact me at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1307
01:04:13.253 --> 01:04:15.360
There will also be a short evaluation
1308
01:04:15.360 --> 01:04:17.160
following today's presentation,
1309
01:04:17.160 --> 01:04:19.410
and that should only take about three minutes to complete.
1310
01:04:19.410 --> 01:04:22.623
We'd love for you to fill that out and give us feedback,
1311
01:04:22.623 --> 01:04:24.455
anything you're willing to share
1312
01:04:24.455 --> 01:04:27.372
about how this evening's presentation has gone.
1313
01:04:28.607 --> 01:04:30.060
And that, my friends,
1314
01:04:30.060 --> 01:04:33.720
ends our Seaside Chats for the 2024 season.
1315
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Thank you for joining us,
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and we look forward to seeing you again next year.
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Bye-Bye.