Lindsey EatonIn recent years, obesity has been a growing problem in the United States. Roughly half of pregnant women gain more than the recommended weight during pregnancy (Center for Disease Control, 2012). Obesity prior to and during pregnancy can cause for poor development of the offsprings’ pancreas. Pancreatic development holds importance as it becomes the main site for islet development. Islet development is pertinent to pancreatic health as they play a major role in the production of important bodily hormones. In order to study islets they need to be removed from the pancreas tissue. The purpose of this study was to create and optimize a protocol for the isolation of islets with the use of different collagenase types. Both collagenase types had different properties that would theoretically allow them to isolate islets without causing damage to them. Collagenase type 4 has low tryptic activity allowing for cell integrity to be maintained, while collagenase type 10 is utilized in the digestion of connective tissues in order to free individual cells. Cell counts yielded from either of the two collagenase types were compared using a hemocytometer to determine which solution isolated the maximum amount of pancreas islets. Collagenase type 4 isolated an average of 812,500 islets/ml (n=4), while collagenase type 10 yielded an average of 93,750 islets/ml (n=4) after comparison. Based on these findings we have optimized an islet isolation protocol that will be utilized in future studies regarding pancreatic development.
Madeline VadnaisThere is much literature covering the communities of parasitoids of Lepidoptera. However, there is little information on whether biodiversity of such complexes differ by area, specifically as a function of proximity to the shore. There is also insufficient study on how the host used by those species with multiple hosts affects parasitism. We deployed larvae of three moth species in different locations varying in their proximity to the shore, and placed larvae of a fourth species on two different hosts (in the same family but different genera). This project sought to understand and assess how different locations vary in biodiversity, specifically the parasitoid complexes of different moths. The parasitism rates of the target species were determined through conducting surveys at various coastal and inland sites throughout southern New England by deployment and retrieval strategy. Signs of parasitism were identified through observations of the retrieved larvae. There was no significant difference in parasitism between sites, although inland sites had slightly higher rates than the coastal ones. This varied between species and one of the species exhibited no signs of parasitism. In our host difference study, we noted no significant difference in larval parasitism between hosts.
Malachy MccaffreyA cryptic species complex is a group of genetically distinct organisms that is classified as one species due to very similar visual characteristics. The “Coryphopterus glaucofraenum complex” is a group of Caribbean reef fish that is involved in a host-parasite interaction, and has been used as a model system for previous ecological studies. At the time, taxonomists believed the host-parasite interaction involved one copepod species that infected one fish species. Recent genetic analyses (DNA barcoding) suggest, however, that the fish may actually be four species of very similar appearance, which also casts doubt on the classification of the copepod as a single species. Parasitized gobies were collected from our field site, and DNA barcoding was combined with traditional analysis of morphological features to clarify which fish species are present, how many copepod species are present, and who infects who? DNA barcodes were compared to visual species IDs to check if the host species could accurately be identified in the field. One species of copepod was found to infect three species of goby; additionally, 100% of DNA barcode IDs matched visual IDs, showing that gobies can be identified in-situ. With this clarified information, future ecological studies can now accurately characterize the interactions between these species.
Margaret RodrigueSalt marshes are essential ecosystems to both humans as well as to marine organisms. However, excessive tidal inundation due to rising sea levels has proven detrimental to their integrity. This study involves using a novel restoration technique at two marsh sites in Charlestown, Rhode Island. This technique was carried out by dredging shoaled areas in the surrounding channel, placing a thick layer of sand over the existing degraded marsh, followed by replanting native marsh grasses, raising the marsh to a higher elevation. Data show that plant diversity (aside from species which were manually planted) increased in subsequent years after sediment placement. New plant recruitment can result from many vectors, though observations indicate that the primary mode of establishment has been through water travel from neighboring marshes, as seen with early plants sprouting in the rack line. The hope is that, through this management technique, the effects of global climate change on salt marshes will be mitigated.
Marissa WeinsteinThe town of Little Compton, RI is comprised of homes that only use their own well-water, and a large portion of the town is exposed to the shoreline. The issues with groundwater, or encroaching seawater, could affect everyone in the town and lead to harmful consequences. The Conservation Commission group of Little Compton initiated an extensive town-wide hydrological study in order to determine the quality of well water in people’s homes. Using pH, TDS, and EC meters, several public water areas and wells were tested in an attempt to determine overall water quality of the area. The electrical conductivity (EC) and total dissolved solids (TDS) of water are measurements that can be used to determine the amount of encroaching salinity of the ocean upon the coast, while the pH could be an indicator of increasing pollution. A total of 170 private well water samples were taken, 57 of these houses were sampled twice, and 30 public water areas were tested as well. The data collected from the town-wide hydrological study exhibited no extreme issues with encroaching salinity and groundwater.
Melati TarrantCertain coastal stressors are becoming more prevalent as urbanization increases. Coastal organisms must adapt to these environmental changes in order to survive and reproduce. Eutrophication can cause coastal acidification (CA) which can disrupt an organism’s normal physiological processes. This sudden increase of nutrients can promote algal growth and can cause a hypoxic environment due to microbial consumption of organic matter which produces more carbon dioxide. Coastal acidification is also influenced by sewage effluent (SE) which can also introduce large amounts of nutrients. Sewage effluent is produced by anthropogenic activities and carries a variety of chemicals, like hormones and pharmaceutical cocktails, that can affect the pH of coastal waters. It is known that acidification can degrade calcium carbonate shells on invertebrates and an increase of nutrients can disrupt marine ecosystems, however not a lot is known regarding CA, SE and their cumulative effects on organisms in the early life stages. The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, is a popular fishery and an ecosystem engineer that is found in coastal waters. These organisms must adapt to an increase of CA and SE, however little is known on how they acclimate to these stressors in their larval stage. Eastern oyster larvae were exposed to four different treatments: control, sewage effluent, coastal acidification, and a combination of both CA and SE. Larval density samples were collected after 1, 12, and 24 hours and the larvae were counted and their shell dimensions were measured through ImageJ. At 24 hours, there was a higher abundance in the control treatment compared to the other stressors. CA+SE had the highest mortality rate compared to CA and SE individually. This indicates that when multiple stressors are acting simultaneously they do more damage than when they are acting individually. There were no clear differences in the shell dimension measurements throughout each treatment and time period.
Michaela BellisleThe prevalence of e-textile or smart textile development is rapidly growing in today’s society. This technology can be incorporated into many applications ranging from aesthetics/fashion to medical and military. Due to their comfort and discretion they are particularly supported by healthcare professionals, specifically for the diagnosis and ensuing treatment monitoring of patient adherence. It is primarily because of these potential benefits in critical applications, that the responsibility of validation and characterization of e-textiles is so important. That is why it is the goal of this project to analyze e-textile pressure sensors to be used in IoT healthcare solutions. In particular, we chose to look at the functionality of piezoresistive materials integrated with conductive textile materials. These materials included 3M™ Velostat™ and Neutronyx Nonwoven 200 as the piezoresistive materials; and stainless steel conductive thread, conductive cloth tape and silver knit conductive fabric as the conductive materials. We designed and implemented a crank slider mechanism for recurrent loading and unloading of precise amounts of pressure, ranging from 2 ounces to 10 ounces. Through this we concluded that attention to the textile substrates is needed since they have significant impact on the quality of pressure responses from the e-textile sensors. The future of this work does include improvements on the crank slider mechanism used for this study. Such that it was decided to focus on automating the system to include different types of strain tests for analyzing the e-textile sensors. Furthermore, we would like to expand upon the existing setup we created to obtain the most reliable data.
Michelle ZhangThe methanogenic Archaea (also named methanogens) produce methane under anaerobic
conditions and are ecologically important microorganisms that contribute to the emission of
green-house gases. The methanogens are broadly distributed in marine sediments, wetlands, deep
sea sediments, animal guts, and wastewater. Through a metabolic process named
methanogenesis, methane can be produced through three different pathways: hydrogenotrophic, aceticlastic, and methylotrophic. We used genome-scale models (GEMs) of metabolism to investigate the metabolic capacity of diverse methanogens, focusing on two questions: (1) What pathways are conserved/divergent among the different types of methanogens? (2) How does the different strategies of methanogenesis influence the energy conservation and redox balance among different organisms? GEMs of six mesophilic methanogens were collected from the literature. The models were refined using the Portable System for the Analysis of Metabolic Models (PSAMM) package to ensure consistencies in formula and charge balances of reactions and confirm that the models can replicate biomass production, methane production, and gene knock-out simulation profiles reported in the literature. Two high quality models, iMG746 (Methanosarcina barkeri) and iMM518 (Methanococcus maripaludis), were selected as representatives of aceticlastic/methylotrophic and hydrogenotrophic methanogens, respectively. Comparing the metabolic reactions of Ms. barkeri and Mc. maripaludis using a newly developed model-mapping program in PSAMM, we identified and created a visualization of the conserved and divergent pathways. We also identified the essential enzymes in methanogenesis and related energy conversion and redox balance among the two distinct species of methanogens.
Mikayla SwensonCyanobacteria blooms have become increasingly prevalent due to increasing effects of climate change resulting in anoxic conditions in lakes, ponds and rivers across the state of Rhode Island. Despite the prevalence in New England Cyanobacteria blooms are becoming problematic for waterbodies across the entire United States. Also known as blue-green algae Cyanobacteria produce microcystin, a toxin causing gastrointestinal issues in the bodies of humans and animals who come in contact with a bloom. The purpose of this project was to determine if increased productivity due to more rainfall in the winter months and hotter summers are resulting in greater numbers of harmful algal blooms; reducing dissolved oxygen levels in local watersheds and off putting the equilibrium of aquatic ecosystems effecting game fish such as trout, perch and bass. Increased human activity due to runoff from industrialization near urban areas is vastly contributing to the rise of harmful algal blooms.
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