Honors College Thesis
 

Using TEM to Evaluate the Importance of the Microbiome and Virome Between Fire Corals and Scleractinian Corals

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/honors_college_theses/8910k181b

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  • As important ecological cornerstones, coral reefs face threats from a myriad of sources, such as global climate change, and importantly, disease, the latter often as a result of microbial pathogens. An understudied group of major corals, fire corals, and their even less understood microbiome present an opportunity to learn more about the coral reef ecosystem and lead to a better understanding of their decline in recent decades. Here, through the use of Transmission Electron Microscopy, we evaluate fire corals from the Pacific Ocean and scleractinian corals from the Atlantic Ocean at the microscopic level, with a focus on the viruses and bacteria present. The discovery of a novel giant virus-like-particle (VLP) in the fire coral tissue shows that further study of fire corals may add to the field of virology, while a morphologically distinct bacteria-like-object (BLO), likely Rickettsiales, in both fire coral and stony coral suggests this bacteria may not be the sole cause of White Band Disease, a specific disease of a sub group of scleractinian coral. Finally, the presence of similar VLPs and BLOs across both fire corals and stony corals indicate that the microbiomes of these two groups are equally complex, even when compared across ocean basins.
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  • Intellectual Property (patent, etc.)
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  • 2020-06-05 to 2021-07-06

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