Anya Brown is investigating microbes' critical role in coral reefs

'So the clue was, 'This temperate coral undergoes quiescence in the winter. Another word for this is … ?'' Anya Brown has spent most of her adult life around coral reef systems. Her brother, meanwhile, has cultivated a career as a writer on the American quiz show, 'Jeopardy!'
He once consulted her for a marine science question idea, which aired on season 39 (episode 8924) of the series. 'The word was 'hibernation,'' Brown reveals, and it had formed the basis of her post-doctoral research assessing how corals go dormant, and what happens to their microbial communities when they do. She's devoted her career to investigating how microbes influence ecology and the evolution of macroscopic species.
'So, I go from the teeny tiny, to the large,' says Brown, a marine biologist, ecologist, National Geographic Explorer and assistant professor at the University of California, Davis.
Since 2022, Brown has been a lead scientist on the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expedition in Rarotonga, the most populous of the Cook Islands. In close collaboration with the Cook Rarotonga nonprofit organization Kōrero O Te 'Ōrau , local partners Teina Rongo, Jackie Rongo and Siana Whatarau, and fellow UC Davis professor Dr. Rachael Bay, Brown has planted and monitored a coral nursery to better understand the nuances of coral bleaching — the loss of the coral's nutrient supply via two important types of microbes: symbiotic bacteria and algae (also called zooxanthellae), which live in coral tissues. The team is examining the role of microbes and coral genetics in heat tolerance and bleaching resistance .
'It turns out some coral species are far more resistant to bleaching, meaning they don't respond to the heat stress, than others,' explains Brown.
The team's findings could hold promising implications for the recovery of dwindling marine life as rising ocean temperatures have caused more frequent, longer-lasting bleaching events in recent years.
Moreover, 'It's possible that some species that don't bleach under heat stress, are rescuing coral types that do.' This would be consistent with Brown's research in Little Cayman, Cayman Islands, which found that nursery corals organized with different genotypes decreased disease.
But to say with more certainty whether this is the case in Rarotonga, the team needs to start by examining coral DNA.

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