Dr. Ruiting Lan's use of minimum-spanning trees has enabled detailed analysis of the diversity of Bordatella pertussis genotypes in Australia.
Identification of Inducers of Settlement of Invertebrate Larvae
The converse of natural antifoulants are chemical inducers of settlement, which act as cues for settling propagules (larvae, spores, etc.), enabling these planktonic forms to settle in an appropriate habitat for resumption of the benthic (bottom- dwelling) phase of their life history. The analysis of cues that control settlement in marine organisms and understanding the generality or specificity at which these cues operate is fundamental to advancing our understanding of adult distribution and abundance, population and community variability and hence our ability to manage natural marine systems.
Examples of this research include investigations of settlement cues for the common Australian sea urchins Holopneustes purpurascens and Heliocidaris eryrthrogramma. More recently, we addressed the question of why the larvae of many wild, harvested and even farmed species such as sea urchins, starfish, oysters, abalone and corals, settle preferentially on coralline algae or biofilms associated with these plants. These observations suggest a potentially significant role of coralline algae in establishing and structuring marine benthic communities.
Although a paradigm of coralline algae as general mediators or cues for induction of larval settlement has long been recognised, so far no common, natural chemical settlement cue has been identified. Our aim is to identify common chemical cues that enable these plants to be such a widespread settlement substrate for larvae.
Mariculture and marine conservation stand to benefit from knowledge of these cues as many commercially valuable and environmentally significant species (abalone, sea urchins and coralivorous crown-of-thorns starfish) rely on them.
BABS personnel that are responsible for this project