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Revelations from mitogenome studies of western Gulf of Mexico octocorals
April 2, 2020 @ 3:30 pm - 4:00 pm
OneNOAA Science Seminar Series
Speaker: Erin Easton – University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Sponsor: NOAA Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program
Point of Contact: heather.coleman@noaa.gov (301-427-8650)
Register for the webinar: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6172660881479604236.
For audio: Participants can use their computer speakers or call 631-992-3221 followed by passcode 493-034-810.
Abstract: The continental shelf of the western Gulf of Mexico is a wide, muddy shelf punctuated by a few protruding reefs at mesophotic depths (30-150 m). These reefs provide essential habitat for abundant and diverse marine communities. Most of our knowledge of the octocorals on these reefs is obtained from video surveys and samples collected at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary but few detailed morphological analyses and genetic studies have been conducted on the collected samples. Because octocorals can be difficult to assign to species from images and the intraspecific and interspecific morphological variations are not well understood for many octocoral taxa, their diversity may be under or overestimated at these reefs. In addition, traditional barcoding regions for octocorals often reveal few to no genetic differences within species or closely related species. To identify new potential barcode regions and to determine whether genetic analysis of the collected octocorals reveal different diversity patterns, we obtained mitogenomes for octocoral morphospecies. Dozens of new primers were designed and at least three potential barcode regions were identified. Preliminary mitogenome data reveal field identifications are often inaccurate, some morphospecies consist of multiple distinct lineages, some morphospecies are genetically distinct from species reported from the region, and target mitogenome regions that may better resolve interspecific differences than the standard barcoding regions used for octocoral studies.
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(Erin Easton, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)