Date of Completion

2018

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Biology

Thesis Type

Honors College, College of Arts and Science Honors

First Advisor

Melissa Pespeni

Keywords

Pisaster ochraceous, sea star wasting, microbiome, Tenacibaculum, Pseudoalteromonas

Abstract

The largest epidemic of sea star wasting disease is affecting over 20 different species of sea stars in the west coast of the United States. The etiology of sea star wasting disease is currently unknown. Given the important role an organism’s bacterial community plays in health and disease, we sought to compare the composition of the microbiome of sick and healthy Pisaster ochraceous sea stars. Because tissue types often differ in their microbiomes, we also compared body wall, tube feet, ampullae, stomach, pyloric caeca, gonad, and cross section tissues. To do this, we used 16s amplicon sequencing to classify the bacterial communities and compare across disease state and tissue type. We found some degree of overlap in the microbiome of sick and healthy tissues, with Tenacibaculum as the most common genera of higher differential abundance. We also found clustering by tissue type, and stomach and body wall tissue particularly differed from other tissues in their bacterial composition.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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