PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY
How organisms respond to environmental change determines their ecological and evolutionary success. Within the context of rapidly progressing climate change, phenotypic plasticity is central to organismal survival. Phenotypes are defined as any observable characteristics linked to a host's genotype and environment, which may include morphology, physiology, behavior, or composition of the endosymbiotic microbiome. During my Master of Science with Dr. Bastian Bentlage, I developed a methodology that allowed me to phenotype thousands of endosymbiotic dinoflagellates (Anthony et al. 2023 PLoS One). I later used this method to reveal that corals and jellyfish likely rely on the cellular plasticity of their endosymbionts to respond to environmental change (Anthony et al. 2023 Front Ecol and Evol; Salas et al. 2024 J Exp Mar Biol Ecol). Similarly, I survey phenotypic distributions of corals and jellyfishes in different environments (Anthony et al. 2024 Mar Ecol; Anthony et al. 2022 Zoomorphology) and track phenotypic response of corals to transplantation, nursery culture, and/or heat stress (e.g., Anthony et al., Mar Pollut Bull). This provides evidence for the phenotypic contribution to fitness and is central to developing sustainable monitoring and rehabilitation strategies and forming hypotheses for mechanism-focused research.
CELL BIOLOGY OF PHOTOSYMBIOSIS
Broadly, I am interested in the mechanisms responsible for the formation and persistence of marine ecosystems. Coral reefs most likely evolved in low-nutrient environments after corals acquired symbiotic algae, which provided important nutrients for the coral host. During my time at the University of Guam, I was able to show that coral-associated symbiotic algae develop a rough cell wall in stressful conditions (e.g., Anthony et al. 2024 Mar Pollut Bull). However, the specific cellular mechanisms underlying these phenomena remained elusive until a team led by Dr. Shinichiro Maruyama published a paper suggesting that corals use an acidic environment to acquire sugars from the cell wall of their algal symbionts (Ishii… Maruyama 2023 eLife). This could explain my observed increase in cell roughness and may provide a potential mechanistic link to explain symbiotic stability in such environmental conditions. I am pursuing this for my PhD at the University of Tokyo.
CORAL REEF MONITORING AND REHABILITATION
Coral restoration and rehabilitation is one of the most important and highly funded efforts in marine science. Yet, many projects are unsuccessful, and none have successfully built resilience into their coral stock, which is necessary if rehabilitated reefs are to survive climate change. In an effort to resolve this issue, Dr. Héloïse Rouzé, Dr. Laurie Raymundo, and I have been trying to resolve the dynamics of the coral microbiome during coral nursery culture and coral transplantation, the two primary techniques central to coral restoration and rehabilitation success. Alongside this, we are trying to develop specific techniques that build resilience and/or detect stress for implementation into restoration and rehabilitation programs. This includes the proposed fusion of corals with different environmental memories (Anthony et al. In revision after review at One Earth) and the use of Symbiodiniaceae phenotypes as bioindicators for acclimatization after coral transplantation (Anthony et al. 2024 Mar Pollut Bull).
THE NEUSTONIC ECOSYSTEM
​As mentioned initially, I am interested in the mechanisms responsible for the formation and persistence of marine ecosystems. The neustonic ecosystem (the ecosystem at the ocean's surface) is a unique ecosystem centered around beautiful blue Hydrozoa (Porpita, Velella, Physalia). Not only are these organisms important trophic contributors (e.g., Anthony 2024 Food Webs), they also uniquely distribute via both wind and oceanic currents. Using phylogeny and ancestral reconstructions, Dr. Rebecca Helm, Dr. Bastian Bentlage, and I showed that these animals evolved from benthic ancestors by modifying attachment structures (Anthony et al. 2024 Current Biology). Additionally, as part of a global collaboration led by Dr. Samuel Church and Dr. Casey Dunn, we confirmed the rejection of the oceanic panmixia hypothesis through genome skimming of Physalia (Church et al. 2024, bioRxiv), while simultaniously using iNaturalist observations to resolve Physalia's confusing systematics.​​
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CNIDARIA AND OPEN SCIENCE
Science is notoriously inaccessible to normal people, largely due to its high cost, thus limiting innovation and diversity. Lucky for us, jellyfish are beautiful, dangerous organisms that regularly wash up on public beaches. This makes them important to study ecologically and good targets for community-generated data, thus allowing normal people to contribute to meaningful scientific idea. ​Built from this idea, I used iNaturalist to model the niche space and distributions of rhizostome jellyfishes (Anthony et al. 2023 Animals), which I am now expanding on with Dr. Marie Strader's research group.
Similarly, I publish all original lab protocols on protocols.io (e.g., Anthony et al. 2024 protocols.io), deposit all sequencing data onto NCBI, deposit all code onto GitHub, and try to only use publicly available statistical tools.
