Oceanography Seminar

Rosie Alegado
Assistant Researcher
Department of Oceanography
UH Sea Grant
Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education

“Microbial drivers of evolution: Insights from interactions between choanoflagellates and their bacterial prey”

Abstract: The long-term goals of my research are to understand how chemical cues from bacteria impact the higher trophic levels in the ocean as well as to determine how these types of interactions may have shaped host-microbe evolution. Choanoflagellates are a diverse group of free-living, bacterivorous microbial eukaryotes found ubiquitously in aquatic environments and act as a key link between bacteria and higher levels of the marine food web. In addition, choanoflagellates are the closest living relatives of animals and, as such, are a key point of comparison for understanding animal origins. This seminar will highlight the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta as a model for simple multicellular development and discovery of a novel chemical cue produced by the prey bacteria Algoriphagus machipongonensis. The S. rosetta - A. machipongonensis pairing provides a new system to test hypotheses about the evolution of interkingdom signaling as well as the top-down effect of bacterial predators, such as choanoflagellates, marine ecosystems.

Ticket Information
FREE

Event Sponsor
Oceanography, Manoa Campus

More Information
808-956-7633

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