calebcbutler.com
Marine ecologist, leftist, cat parent | LaJeunesse Lab PhD Candidate & NSF GRFP Fellow | they/he🏳️🌈🧪🦠🪸
tags: coral, ecology, psu, algae, phycology, enby
AI art spam = block
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For better or for worse, I have auto-update on so it's the latest. I've encountered this issue for years (easily 5+) however, it's just coming to head now that I'm preparing an hour long presentation compared to like 12 minutes ones.
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I used to do .png, but ran into the same problems on a wider scale (and not vectorized, so tough to manipulate without getting grainy). I've tried the options in PowerPoint that are supposed to compress things better, but no dice. I've tried the slew of google recs.
Do I just have to live with it?
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boo vertebrates!
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Please excuse the times I misspelled Pachyseris as Pachyseries. There's only one "e"!
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This flexibility is of course important for different light/thermal regimes. That said: it's still a consistently small number of partners. Specificity still exists here and is critical for our understanding of coral-algal mutualisms.
Diff symbionts -> Diff physiology!
(...now back to bench work)
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Now depth here is important because it affects light, which affects the photosynthetic coral symbionts I study.
While the previous study didn't find many differences, we've found P. rugosa to host different species of symbionts (and in different genera) across different light regimes.
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This neat coral is found across the Indo-Pacifc, including the Red Sea, Palau, the GBR, parts of the South China Sea, and a lot more places. One recent study focusing on P. speciosa found significant genetic differentiation based off of depth and location, with no correlation to morphology
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In their study, Quek et al. (2023) used a hybrid-capture approach to collect as much genetic information as possible for lots of target hard corals.
This approach confirmed and agreed with Kirahara et al. 2012: Pachyseris was more closely related to Euphyllidae than Agariciidae.
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Kitahara et al. 2012 however noted that more morphological evidence should be accounted for before placing Pachyseris into a new family.
In 2023, Quek et al., first formally described the family name "Pachyseridae" while also making note that others had already begun using it informally.
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Kitahara et al. 2012 used a multi-marker approach (always good) to delineate and study family Agariciidae. Though they only had one marker for a Pachyseris (P. speciosa, different species!), they found it was rather distantly related from the other Agariciids, and more related to Euphyllidae
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Now for a long time, Pachyersies was considered to be in the family Agariciidae, alongside the still valid Agaricia, Pavona (remember those cactus corals? That's the group), and a few others. However with the advent of molecular techniques, some doubt starting being raised to this placement.
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As older taxonomic systems go as you look through them, there were many different descriptions of P. rugosa based off of differing morphologies, that were later reconciled into one species with genetic methods. Some of these other names include P. carinata, P. monticulosa, P., and P. valenciennesia.
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In 1849, Milne and Edwards first described the genus Pachyseris, meaning "thick lettuce" in Greek. While I'm unsure what lettuce Milne and Edwards were eating (jk), they moved A. rugosa into Pachyseris as the type specimen, creating the P. rugosa we know of today.
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In this description, Lamarck makes an important point here, "the stars are not visible". In this case, Lamarck is referring to a star-like structure that coral polyps are housed in, within the skeleton. These are what we refer to as "corallites".
Notice them missing on this P. rugosa skeleton?
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Now the WOrld Register of Marine Species (WORMS) lists good ol' Lamarck (the giraffe reaches for high tree so neck get longer guy) as the person to first describe Pachyseries rugosa, but as Agaricia rugosa 1801 (it actually was described in his follow-up book in 1816 as below)
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Serolid isopods truly are superficially convergent on some #trilobites!
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As a neurodivergent non-binary person, these federal changes also weigh heavily on mind, which have compounded with the stress of dissertation crunch-time. This will also allow me to prioritize my mental health.
Sending best wishes to all others affected and worried. We will get through this.
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Interestingly, last time I was in the field, one of my collaborators (@xestysponge.bsky.social) snapped an image of many Fungiid's aggregated together.
I am uncertain if this is a monospecific pairing (and wouldn't trust without genetic evidence first), but it's a very fascinating behavior.
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Funnily enough, these corals also sometimes display "swarming" or "aggregating" behavior. One paper, by Heintz and Laboute (2020) reported the first known monospecific (one species!) aggregation of these corals, which may be a behavior for sexual reproduction.
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Incredible images, thank you for sharing. Would you be comfortable if I used them in a presentation? With credit of course.
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Thank you! Yes I'm not letting them take my joy from me!