After a detour to Alabama following the 28th NSF EPSCoR National Conference in Nebraska, Bastian Bentlage, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Bioinformatics, brought home a newly developed scientific instrument to aid in coral research.
Bentlage, with accompanying graduate research assistant Nikko Galanto, made the journey out to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, located on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. The lab has been developing the build and circuitry of a new scientific research instrument, as well as the computer models and programs needed to run it. This instrument measures the performance of a coral’s photosystem under heat stress using fluorescent light.
“If you shoot a blue light at a chloroplast, like let’s say an algal cell, not all of the energy from the light is actually seamlessly converted right into making sugars and by extension energy,” Bentlage explained. “So, you can actually measure the amount of fluorescence that is produced and by extension then can make some inferences about the underlying health of the chloroplast.”
With this new method, the researchers hope the instrument will help to identify corals that are most resilient to increasing sea surface temperatures so they may be prioritized for reef restoration.
This particular research project is conducted in collaboration with Kenneth Hoadley, Ph.D., from the University of Alabama and Mark Warner, Ph.D., from the University of Delaware, with Bentlage and Marine Lab director Laurie Raymundo, Ph.D., representing the University of Guam. The connection stemmed from another proponent of the research project Victor Bonito, Ph.D., director of Fiji-based non-profit Reef Explore Fiji, Ltd. The universities first approached Bonito to write a grant to help expand their existing research. As a graduate of the UOG Marine Lab, it was through Bonito’s recommendation that the UOG Marine Lab be sought out for collaboration.
“It was really interesting for me to visit, to see a different approach to science,” Bentlage mentioned. “I’ve never really thought about, or didn’t know really where you would start to work with someone who was actually in that space where, ‘hey, we’re actually developing the technology to measure certain things.’”
The two universities plan to visit Guam next year to see what results the instrument has found, as well as to conduct their own research and experiments.