Post about current Dissertation Chapter Breakdown and thoughts on what the missing chapter could be!
Current Chapters
Chapter 1 <– Adults and Juveniles Exposed to SSWD Tissue Homogenates
Current Status: Resubmitting to Wiley Nature and Ecology THIS FRIDAY
Chapter 2 <– Multi-species Immune Response Comparison (exposure is co-housed with wasting P. helianthoides injected with coelomic fluid from wasting P. helianthoides)
Current Status: Working on Results and Draft
Goal –> finalize current results and draft this summer
Chapter 3 <– ????
This is the Chapter that is up in the air. Some possibilities below.
Chapter 4 <– Can eelgrass and/or mussels remove V. pectenicida from sea water? Can eelgrass be refugia for P. helianthoides?
Current Status: Drafting paper; this summer - 2026 sample processing and including results in draft
Goal –> do 2026 lab work and draft this summer
Chapter 3 possibilities
Option A:
Microbes - who’s there and what are they doing?
I have DNA from all the RNAseq samples that I have sequenced that can be extracted and either sequenced for microbes or run on qPCR for V. pectenicida.
This would pair nicely with the immune response work from Chapters 1 and 2 - or can just focus on Chapter 2 samples <– see what microbes they are fighting against. Could be especially interesting for the D. imbricata who had no outward signs of disease despite heavy exposure.
Option B:
Immune response of P. helianthoides exposed to V. pectenicida culture (samples from Prentice et al 2025).
I have the coelomocyte samples from that summer! This would be the first data set looking at immune response from stars injected with V. pectenicida culture!! And it would be a great companion paper to Prentice et al 2025.
Option C:
Immune response of P. helianthiodes to a dose response curve (experiment happening THIS SUMMER! Being run by Hakai folks at USGS Marrowstone and they said they could give me coelomocyte samples that they are going to take)!
Would allow to look at actual resistance if some low-dose exposed P. helianthoides don’t die. And would also be data set of sea stars injected with V. pectenicida culture.