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My laboratory focuses on the examination of infectious and non-infectious diseases of wild and cultured marine invertebrates. We are interested in the impacts of disease on animal health at the individual and population levels. At the individual level, we examine host response (gross to gene expression level) and develop and apply diagnostic tools (e.g., cPCR and qPCR) to detect pathogens and host responses. We also develop treatments for bacterial pathogens. The ecology of infectious diseases at the population level is examined via field and wet laboratory experiments in which the roles of variations in host (e.g., species or family), environment (e.g., temperature, salinity, pH), and pathogen are defined.
Another focus of our laboratory is the conservation of marine invertebrates, particularly abalone. We work with colleagues at universities and state and federal resource agencies to characterize trends in populations, recruitment, and larval survival/behavior.
Our laboratory serves as the OIE Reference Laboratory for infection with "Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis".
Our major projects currently are focused on:
- Effects of ocean acidification on declining Puget Sound calcifiers
- Threats to bivalve aquaculture and fisheries: The influence of emerging diseases and environmental change
- Understanding the roles of competing bacterial endosymbionts in abalone health, management, and restoration
- Developing tools to control and diagnose Withering Syndrome in abalone.
- Restoration of the pinto abalone, Haliotis kamtschatkana, in Washington State
- Assessing potential interactions between cultured and wild geoduck clams in Washington State
- Herpes-like viral infections of Pacific oysters
- Transmission strategies of Ichthyophonus sp., a parasite of walleye pollock in the Bering Sea and Northeast Pacific