Murray Shauna A.

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Murray
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Shauna A.
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  • Article
    Evaluation of sxtA and rDNA qPCR assays through monitoring of an inshore bloom of Alexandrium catenella Group 1
    (Nature Research, 2019-10-10) Murray, Shauna A. ; Ruvindy, Rendy ; Kohli, Gurjeet S. ; Anderson, Donald M. ; Brosnahan, Michael L.
    Alexandrium catenella (formerly A. tamarense Group 1, or A. fundyense) is the leading cause of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. The quantification of A.catenella via sxtA, a gene involved in Paralytic Shellfish Toxin synthesis, may be a promising approach, but has not been evaluated in situ on blooms of A. catenella, in which cell abundances may vary from not detectable to in the order of 106 cells L−1. In this study, we compared sxtA assay performance to a qPCR assay targeted to a species-specific region of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and an established fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) microscopy method. Passing-Bablok regression analyses revealed the sxtA assay to overestimate abundances when <5 cell equivalents A. catenella DNA were analysed, but otherwise was closer to microscopy estimates than the rDNA assay, which overestimated abundance across the full range of concentrations analysed, indicative of a copy number difference between the bloom population and a culture used for assay calibration a priori. In contrast, the sxtA assay performed more consistently, indicating less copy number variation. The sxtA assay was generally reliable, fast and effective in quantifying A. catenella and was predictive of PST contamination of shellfish.
  • Preprint
    Ocean urea fertilization for carbon credits poses high ecological risks
    ( 2008) Glibert, Patricia M. ; Azanza, Rhodora ; Burford, Michele ; Furuya, Ken ; Abal, Eva ; Al-Azri, Adnan ; Al-Yamani, Faiza ; Andersen, Per ; Anderson, Donald M. ; Beardall, John ; Berg, Gry M. ; Brand, Larry E. ; Bronk, Deborah ; Brookes, Justin ; Burkholder, JoAnn M. ; Cembella, Allan D. ; Cochlan, William P. ; Collier, Jackie L. ; Collos, Yves ; Diaz, Robert ; Doblin, Martina ; Drennen, Thomas ; Dyhrman, Sonya T. ; Fukuyo, Yasuwo ; Furnas, Miles ; Galloway, James ; Graneli, Edna ; Ha, Dao Viet ; Hallegraeff, Gustaaf M. ; Harrison, John A. ; Harrison, Paul J. ; Heil, Cynthia A. ; Heimann, Kirsten ; Howarth, Robert W. ; Jauzein, Cecile ; Kana, Austin A. ; Kana, Todd M. ; Kim, Hakgyoon ; Kudela, Raphael M. ; Legrand, Catherine ; Mallin, Michael ; Mulholland, Margaret R. ; Murray, Shauna A. ; O’Neil, Judith ; Pitcher, Grant C. ; Qi, Yuzao ; Rabalais, Nancy ; Raine, Robin ; Seitzinger, Sybil P. ; Salomon, Paulo S. ; Solomon, Caroline ; Stoecker, Diane K. ; Usup, Gires ; Wilson, Joanne ; Yin, Kedong ; Zhou, Mingjiang ; Zhu, Mingyuan
    The proposed plan for enrichment of the Sulu Sea, Philippines, a region of rich marine biodiversity, with thousands of tonnes of urea in order to stimulate algal blooms and sequester carbon is flawed for multiple reasons. Urea is preferentially used as a nitrogen source by some cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates, many of which are neutrally or positively buoyant. Biological pumps to the deep sea are classically leaky, and the inefficient burial of new biomass makes the estimation of a net loss of carbon from the atmosphere questionable at best. The potential for growth of toxic dinoflagellates is also high, as many grow well on urea and some even increase their toxicity when grown on urea. Many toxic dinoflagellates form cysts which can settle to the sediment and germinate in subsequent years, forming new blooms even without further fertilization. If large-scale blooms do occur, it is likely that they will contribute to hypoxia in the bottom waters upon decomposition. Lastly, urea production requires fossil fuel usage, further limiting the potential for net carbon sequestration. The environmental and economic impacts are potentially great and need to be rigorously assessed.
  • Article
    The taxonomic significance of species that have only been observed once : the genus Gymnodinium (Dinoflagellata) as an example
    (Public Library of Science, 2012-08-30) Thessen, Anne E. ; Patterson, David J. ; Murray, Shauna A.
    Taxonomists have been tasked with cataloguing and quantifying the Earth’s biodiversity. Their progress is measured in code-compliant species descriptions that include text, images, type material and molecular sequences. It is from this material that other researchers are to identify individuals of the same species in future observations. It has been estimated that 13% to 22% (depending on taxonomic group) of described species have only ever been observed once. Species that have only been observed at the time and place of their original description are referred to as oncers. Oncers are important to our current understanding of biodiversity. They may be validly described species that are members of a rare biosphere, or they may indicate endemism, or that these species are limited to very constrained niches. Alternatively, they may reflect that taxonomic practices are too poor to allow the organism to be re-identified or that the descriptions are unknown to other researchers. If the latter are true, our current tally of species will not be an accurate indication of what we know. In order to investigate this phenomenon and its potential causes, we examined the microbial eukaryote genus Gymnodinium. This genus contains 268 extant species, 103 (38%) of which have not been observed since their original description. We report traits of the original descriptions and interpret them in respect to the status of the species. We conclude that the majority of oncers were poorly described and their identity is ambiguous. As a result, we argue that the genus Gymnodinium contains only 234 identifiable species. Species that have been observed multiple times tend to have longer descriptions, written in English. The styles of individual authors have a major effect, with a few authors describing a disproportionate number of oncers. The information about the taxonomy of Gymnodinium that is available via the internet is incomplete, and reliance on it will not give access to all necessary knowledge. Six new names are presented – Gymnodinium campbelli for the homonymous name Gymnodinium translucens Campbell 1973, Gymnodinium antarcticum for the homonymous name Gymnodinium frigidum Balech 1965, Gymnodinium manchuriensis for the homonymous name Gymnodinium autumnale Skvortzov 1968, Gymnodinium christenum for the homonymous name Gymnodinium irregulare Christen 1959, Gymnodinium conkufferi for the homonymous name Gymnodinium irregulare Conrad & Kufferath 1954 and Gymnodinium chinensis for the homonymous name Gymnodinium frigidum Skvortzov 1968.
  • Article
    The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP) : illuminating the functional diversity of eukaryotic life in the oceans through transcriptome sequencing
    (Public Library of Science, 2014-06-24) Keeling, Patrick J. ; Burki, Fabien ; Wilcox, Heather M. ; Allam, Bassem ; Allen, Eric E. ; Amaral-Zettler, Linda A. ; Armbrust, E. Virginia ; Archibald, John M. ; Bharti, Arvind K. ; Bell, Callum J. ; Beszteri, Bank ; Bidle, Kay D. ; Cameron, Connor T. ; Campbell, Lisa ; Caron, David A. ; Cattolico, Rose Ann ; Collier, Jackie L. ; Coyne, Kathryn J. ; Davy, Simon K. ; Deschamps, Phillipe ; Dyhrman, Sonya T. ; Edvardsen, Bente ; Gates, Ruth D. ; Gobler, Christopher J. ; Greenwood, Spencer J. ; Guida, Stephanie M. ; Jacobi, Jennifer L. ; Jakobsen, Kjetill S. ; James, Erick R. ; Jenkins, Bethany D. ; John, Uwe ; Johnson, Matthew D. ; Juhl, Andrew R. ; Kamp, Anja ; Katz, Laura A. ; Kiene, Ronald P. ; Kudryavtsev, Alexander N. ; Leander, Brian S. ; Lin, Senjie ; Lovejoy, Connie ; Lynn, Denis ; Marchetti, Adrian ; McManus, George ; Nedelcu, Aurora M. ; Menden-Deuer, Susanne ; Miceli, Cristina ; Mock, Thomas ; Montresor, Marina ; Moran, Mary Ann ; Murray, Shauna A. ; Nadathur, Govind ; Nagai, Satoshi ; Ngam, Peter B. ; Palenik, Brian ; Pawlowski, Jan ; Petroni, Giulio ; Piganeau, Gwenael ; Posewitz, Matthew C. ; Rengefors, Karin ; Romano, Giovanna ; Rumpho, Mary E. ; Rynearson, Tatiana A. ; Schilling, Kelly B. ; Schroeder, Declan C. ; Simpson, Alastair G. B. ; Slamovits, Claudio H. ; Smith, David R. ; Smith, G. Jason ; Smith, Sarah R. ; Sosik, Heidi M. ; Stief, Peter ; Theriot, Edward ; Twary, Scott N. ; Umale, Pooja E. ; Vaulot, Daniel ; Wawrik, Boris ; Wheeler, Glen L. ; Wilson, William H. ; Xu, Yan ; Zingone, Adriana ; Worden, Alexandra Z.
    Microbial ecology is plagued by problems of an abstract nature. Cell sizes are so small and population sizes so large that both are virtually incomprehensible. Niches are so far from our everyday experience as to make their very definition elusive. Organisms that may be abundant and critical to our survival are little understood, seldom described and/or cultured, and sometimes yet to be even seen. One way to confront these problems is to use data of an even more abstract nature: molecular sequence data. Massive environmental nucleic acid sequencing, such as metagenomics or metatranscriptomics, promises functional analysis of microbial communities as a whole, without prior knowledge of which organisms are in the environment or exactly how they are interacting. But sequence-based ecological studies nearly always use a comparative approach, and that requires relevant reference sequences, which are an extremely limited resource when it comes to microbial eukaryotes. In practice, this means sequence databases need to be populated with enormous quantities of data for which we have some certainties about the source. Most important is the taxonomic identity of the organism from which a sequence is derived and as much functional identification of the encoded proteins as possible. In an ideal world, such information would be available as a large set of complete, well-curated, and annotated genomes for all the major organisms from the environment in question. Reality substantially diverges from this ideal, but at least for bacterial molecular ecology, there is a database consisting of thousands of complete genomes from a wide range of taxa, supplemented by a phylogeny-driven approach to diversifying genomics. For eukaryotes, the number of available genomes is far, far fewer, and we have relied much more heavily on random growth of sequence databases, raising the question as to whether this is fit for purpose.