Sewell Lab, University of Auckland

New paper on larval development in an apodid sea cucumber. Very proud of this piece of work, which was the result of having a focused period of time during a COVID-19 lockdown to go through the 1000's of images collected during the 3-months of culturing. Open Access so all can enjoy.

Larval development in the apodid sea cucumber Chiridota gigas, with a focus on coelom development and the serotonergic nervous system during metamorphosis A unifying feature of echinoderm larvae is the development of a left anterior coelom, which consists of an undivided left axocoel and hydrocoel. Although the axocoel is a key deuterostome trait, the ...

New paper, this time on seaweeds - and their potential to act as a marine seed bank.

Investigating seed bank potential of crustose coralline algae using DNA metabarcoding To examine the potential for the autogenic ecosystem engineers, crustose coralline algae (CCA), to serve as seed banks or refugia for life stages of other species, it is critical to develop sampling ...

Latest publication from the lab is a featured article Inside JEB ( J. Exp. Biology). A link to the scientific articles is at the bottom of the summary. Good job Michael Hudson :-)

Ocean acidification impacts s***m swimming performance and pHi in the New Zealand sea urchin Evechinus chloroticus Highlighted Article: Sea urchin s***m performance and internal pH are reduced in ocean acidification conditions, with a high degree of individual variation in both measures.

For the first time there has been a mass bleaching of native sea sponges in Aotearoa, raising alarm about the impact climate change is having on marine ecosystems.

Mass bleaching of native sea sponges in Fiordland shocks scientists

Amazing....

Rising ocean temperatures driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases have caused five mass bleaching events along the reef in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020. It looks like 2021 might soon be added to the list (official monitoring flights are going on at the moment).

Great Barrier Reef hit by sixth mass bleaching event, leading coral scientist says Prof Terry Hughes says he believes bleaching is under way as the Australian government conducts monitoring flights over 2,300km reef

Wow... just wow.... A 2 cm long bacteria —as long as a peanut—and 5000 times bigger than many other microbes. What’s more, this giant bacteria has a huge genome that’s not free floating inside the cell as in other bacteria, but is instead encased in a membrane, an innovation characteristic of much more complex cells, like those in the human body. Blurring the line between prokaryotes and eukaryotes......

Largest bacterium ever discovered has an unexpectedly complex cell Giant microbe from a mangrove could be a missing link between single-celled organisms and the cells that make up humans

New paper from a collaboration with physicists using Raman spectroscopy to differentiate between living and dead phytoplankton.

Detecting Phytoplankton Cell Viability Using NIR Raman Spectroscopy and PCA Raman spectroscopy has long been suggested as a potentially fast and sensitive method to monitor phytoplankton abundance and composition in marine environments. However, the pitfalls of visible detection methods in pigment-rich biological material and the complexity of their spectra have hindered th...

New paper that arose from the "Evolving Seas" workshop at Schoals Marine Laboratory in the northern hemisphere summer of 2019 - the last time I actually left New Zealand....

Does a complex life cycle affect adaptation to environmental change? Genome-informed insights for characterizing selection across complex life cycle | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Complex life cycles, in which discrete life stages of the same organism differ in form or function and often occupy different ecological niches, are common in nature. Because stages share the same genome, selective effects on one stage may have cascading ...

New study along with UoA colleagues Emma Carroll and Rochelle Constantine and a great group of interns and international collaborators. The paper shows the trophic transfer of microplastics to whales via their zooplankton prey. Whales in the Hauraki Gulf are estimated to ingest around 3 million microplastic particles per day......

Assessing microplastic exposure of large marine filter-feeders Large filter-feeding animals are potential sentinels for understanding the extent of microplastic pollution, as their mode of foraging and prey mean t…

Disturbance—such as a particularly forceful tide or a hungry sea otter tearing at eelgrass rhizomes—forces eelgrass to flower at a much higher rate. New seedlings settle in the newly established gaps in the vegetation, and the meadow becomes more genetically diverse.

Sea Otters Are Reshaping the Genetics of Eelgrass Meadows | Hakai Magazine The once-imperiled marine mammal could help this vital coastal ecosystem adapt to a changing world.