"Understanding Disease Resistance in Estuarine Populations and Response to Climate Change"
Dr. Eileen Hofmann
Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography
Monday, February 9, 2009
3:30 PM
Room 3200, Research Innovations Building I
Abstract
Delaware Bay oyster (Crassostrea virginica) populations are influenced by two lethal parasites that cause
Dermo and MSX diseases. As part of the NSF Ecology of Infectious Diseases (EID) initiative, a program has been developed
for Delaware Bay with the objectives of understanding how oyster population genetics and population dynamics interact with
the environment and these parasites to structure the host populations and how these interactions might be modified by
climate change. Laboratory and field studies undertaken in this program have focused on identifying genes related to MSX
and Dermo disease resistance, potential regions for refugia and the mechanisms that allow them to exist, the phenotypic and
genotypic differences in oysters from putative refugia and high-disease areas, and the space and time variability in the
effective size of the spawning populations. These data provide inputs to oyster genetics, population dynamics and larval
growth models, which are interfaced with a three-dimensional circulation model developed for Delaware Bay. Reconstruction
of Lagrangian particle tracks is used to infer transport pathways of oyster larvae and MSX and Dermo disease pathogens.
This presentation describes results from the laboratory, field and modeling studies and provides directions for understanding
long-term changes in Delaware Bay oyster populations.
Biography
Eileen Hofmann received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Marine Science and Engineering from North Carolina State University.
She spent time at Florida State University and Texas A&M University before coming to Old Dominion University.
Her research interests are in the areas of physical-biological interactions in marine ecosystems, climate control of diseases
of marine shellfish populations, descriptive physical oceanography, and mathematical modeling of marine ecosystems.
Reception before seminar at 3:00 PM
Research Innovations Building I
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529
757-683-5548
Last updated 2/02/2009.
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