Marine Invertebrate Research Projects
Plastics - Microplastics and Chemical LeachingInitiated by Rylinn Sorini during her time as an undergraduate at St. Mary's College of Maryland, this continuing project investigates the impact of whole plastic degradation (including chemical leaching and microplastic formation) on juvenile oyster survival, growth, and maturation with a focus on sexual differentiation during gametogenesis.
Two students at SUNY Cortland, Brittany Apuzza and Marissa Kordal, have continued this work. Brittany received funding from the TriBeta Research Grant and was awarded the Oustanding Undergraduate Research Award at the spring 2018 Atlantic Estuarine Research Society meeting and 2nd place for Best Oral Presentation at the NE-1 regional TriBeta convention. Marissa received the SUNY Cortland Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow in 2019, applied for a pending TriBeta grant, and was an invited speaker at the Alumni Symposium at SUNY Cortland on October 12, 2019. Marissa also presented at the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society meeting in April 2021. I presented the results of their combined work at the biennial Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) conference in November 2019. Rylinn, Brittany, Marissa and I co-authored a manuscript from their combined work, published in 2021 in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. With funding from New York Sea Grant, I am now exploring transcriptomic responses to plastic exposure in male and female gonadal tissue relative to gill tissue. Photo by Rylinn Sorini |
Environmental Salinity and Phenotypic Plasticity
Previous graduate work in the lab of Dr. Matthew Hare explored how differences in environmental salinity shape larval oyster survival and patterns of gene expression in adult oysters. Follow-up studies are in development.
Photo by Laura Eierman |
Recent News
Recent work receives praise
What can you do with "just" a transcriptome? Kind acknowledgement of Eierman and Hare (2014) from the Roberts Lab of the University of Washington. |
Microplastics in the Chesapeake Bay
"Plastic soup" in the Chesapeake Bay: What will this mean for the oysters? |