New paper!

Our first sponge paper was accepted at Zoological Studies!

James Davis Reimer, Yoko Nozawa, Euichi Hirose. Domination and disappearance of the black sponge: a quarter century after the initial Terpios outbreak in southern Japan. Zoological Studies (accepted).

Another paper....

James Davis Reimer, Frederic Sinniger. Unexpected diversity in Canadian Pacific zoanthids (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Hexacorallia): a molecular examination and description of a new species from the waters of British Columbia. Marine Biodiversity.

Stay tuned for even more papers...

New paper!

Just accepted at Zoological Science.

James Davis Reimer, Mamiko Hirose, Taiki Nishisaka, Frederic Sinniger, Gyo Itani. Epizoanthus spp. associations revealed using DNA markers: a case study from Kochi, Japan. Zoological Science.

New paper!

Another paper of ours was accepted:

James Davis Reimer, MD Mafuzur Rahman Shah, Frederic Sinniger, Kensuke Yanagi, Shoichiro Suda. Preliminary analyses of cultured free-living Symbiodinium isolated from the oceanic Ogasawara Islands, Japan. Marine Biodiversity.

Stay tuned for more news!

Heron Island #1

Hi all,

Quick update from Heron Island. We arrived yesterday, 100km off shore from Gladstone. The new marine station here is very nice, and CReefs looks after the researchers very very well.

Some quick bits of info:
1. Heron Island is covered with birds. One species, the shearwater, comes back only at night, and the babies cry all night. Makes sleep tough, and when you do sleep, the dreams are odd!
2. Reefs here are proper no-take zones, and full of life. Zoanthids too (see picture).
3. I am not going to lose weight here, steak for dinner last night, duck for lunch!
4. Marine biologists are great simply because they like beer.

I will try to post every day.

JDR@Heron

Things to remember while JDR is in Aus!

All lab members: Get Skype, then we can talk for free while I am in Australia! Ask MO, CA, or YI for my Skype address.

Things to remember while I am in Australia:

1. JCRS presenters (MO, YM, TF, YI): If you have a poster, do not forget to a. check it with me, and b. make a reservation to print it. You can print it using my "公費（教育）” that the Biology Office manages.
2. All lab members: Please help with formalin clean-up. Today's participants know how, so ask them. As well, we may be able to pay some money for helping!
3. YI: you are the chair for the next seminar on December 2nd. Don't forget the posters and PDFs!
4. Jobs in December - we will do paperwork in November by email while I am in Australia. Please remind me if you get the chance, I may forget!
5. M.Hirose will start work from November in the lab; please help her if she has any questions.
6. Work for lab members while i am gone:
a. MO - lab management, etc. Also, the freezer if it arrives.
b. YM - sclerites, DNA (COI, ITS, MutS) complete data sets (pink, purple, green morphs). Begin thesis!
c. TF and YI: continue as is. TF and YM need to help with my class (Nov. 18, 25).
d. CA - continue as is.
e. MH - check DNA data; begin thesis!
f. YH - data collection, begin thesis!
g. YS - DNA analyses, begin thesis!
h. HS - sampling! If you want, begin DNA (ask someone to help you).
i. MK - DNA extraction, examining Symbiodinium DNA.
j. OT - continue snail and host sampling.
k. TN - learn sampling and field ID.
l. MM - DNA results? Also, begin cnidome analyses if you want (ask TF or YI to help).

Good luck!

Swimming off to the distance at Manza.

Update coming home from Costa Rica

Hi! JDR here with a small update:

1. Costa Rica was great - Prof. Jorge Cortes was a great host. Hopefully we can do more work in the future, and perhaps even set up some kind of agreement.
2. US bases in Okinawa need to be re-examined!! They provide economic help to Okinawa, but in some aspects they are not welcome - noise and pollution. Also, admittedly admission policies and privacy of personal information are not very good eother - just ask CA. Here is hoping the new government does NOT approve Henoko and moves Futenma out of Okinawa.
3. On the other hand, the new Japan govt. has evidently cancelled the JSPS Wakate S program for the next year (forever??). Another boo!

Ahhh, if only science and research was not influenced by politics...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration

http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/pipermail/coral-list/2009-March/038629.html

See you soon!

JDR

update from Costa Rica

A brief update on things here in Costa Rica.

1. Staying at my host's place, a prof here called Jorge Cortes. He has a nice house with a swimming pool and sauna - needless to say I am relaxing when not working. No internet at his place, so only when I am in the lab here at CIMAR.
2. Went to the Caribbean coast from the 8th to 11th, stayed at a place called Cahuita - check GoogleEarth. Very nice place, great food (great food everywhere here!), but no diving as there were waves. So did some snorkeling, very bad visibility, but got 16 specimens. Not bad considering the conditions.
3. Went to the Volcan Poas today, hiked around at 2700 m. Cool and cloudy, it is a cloud forest. Was very nice for a change.
4. Talk tomorrow at the Universidad de Costa Rica, even announced in the paper! I hope many people come.
5. There are animals everywhere here, I have seen: monkeys, raccoons, sloths, iguanas, frogs, butterflies, and of course zoanthids.

Anyway, some work now, then souvenir shopping. Talk tomorrow, and then museum work Wednesday, and leave Thursday. Hope everyone is genki.

JDR

Lab meeting Sept. 9, 2009 and updates

Summer!

Everyone is out in the field, or so it seems. Still, we need to update the blog. Here is the latest info:
1. Taiwan expedition and symposium: JDR and MO participated along with Hirose-sensei in sampling in both southern and northern Japan. We all also gave presentations at the special symposium (see posting earlier). All in all a great trip; we need to visit there more often! Big thanks to Shanky, Chen-sensei, and Nozawa-sensei for all their help!

Stay tuned for updates on this topic.

2. YK09-12 cruise at the Japan Trench: FS, CA, and TF finished the cruise with many samples despite the bad weather. In particular, many octocorals were collected.
3. 5th NCB: Being held in northern Japan now. TF and YI are participating, as well as sampling in the Japan Sea! Brrr.... Next NCB will be here in Okinawa.
4. JDR is now an associate editor of WoRMS - more info later.

Lab meeting today:
1. Tanks this week: YS
2. DNA classes next week: MO, MH, YS, MM participating!
3. YI wants a cheap new automatic car. Anyone with info please contact her.
4. Diving Friday at Sunabe: JDR and MH.

Have a great week!

Today's pic: Acrozoanthus in Kenting.

Omiyage and Taiwan

Ikuko Yuyama has brought some omiyage from her trip to a conference in the USA. The omiyage (pictured above) are in the refrigerator - please help yourself!

MO and JDR are off to Taiwan today. FS, CA, and TF are at the Japan Trench, and YI will go to the 5th NCB conference soon. Also, some 3rd years (HS, MM, TN) have been traveling in Japan too - busy summer holidays!

YK09-12 update 2

Update from FS, aboard the YK09-12 cruise at the Japan Trench:

We are still in Mutsu Wan, the sky became blue and after a windy night the weather is now nice. However, the typhoon is still not far and we are now hoping to dive already tomorrow, but it looks difficult as we have a very long ride (more then 12 hours) to go to the site, and the sea outside of the bay is certainly still quite Rock n'Roll.
So in the meantime we are relaxing, writing papers, aligning sequences, and praying for good conditions.

Japan Trench cruise update

Update from FS, aboard JAMSTEC YK09-12 at the Japan Trench:

We went to the first diving site, but the typhoon coming on our way, it was decided not to dive and rather to head to Mutsu Wan to get shelter from the waves. So without any sample to analyse we are reduced to bird and whale watching, especially yesterday as it was too wavy to work on the computer. Here is a picture of one of the two sperm whales I was lucky to see from the bridge.
Tonight I think we should have a drinking party for the sea gods so the second leg of the mission is successful.

Hope the weather gets better!

Ignored fauna workshop

As part of JDR's JSPS grant and in collaboration with Academia Sinica, there will be an "ignored fauna workshop" in Taiwan next month.

Check here for the link:

http://coral.biodiv.tw/2009a/Default.aspx

Thanks to everyone at Academia Sinica, and especially Shanky for all their hard work! MO and JDR will attend September 3rd-8th.

Mid-term presentations

The 4th years finished their presentations today! It was a loooong day, but all three did a very good job.

Otsukare-sama deshita!

Guam cancelled

In a rather drastic measure, Ryudai is prohibiting all overseas to travel to all foreign countries as a result of the H1N1 in Kobe and Osaka. I guess better safe than sorry, but this seems a bit overdone. I imagine in a week or two things will be back to normal, but for now all I will say is: boo hoo.

Also, cheers to ANA for being understanding and refunding our money. Boos mixed with hmmm to HIS Chatan for refusing to refund our money until 30 minutes into a heated discussion.

Report from Ogasawara

Hello everyone,

JDR here, finally back in high-speed internet land. Just a quick report on the Ogasawara trip that FS and I went on with Yanagi-san.

Ogasawara is an amazing place; only 3000 people and many uninhabited islands. Even the inhabited islands are relatively pristine. Ogasawara is aiming to become a World Natural Heritage site, and thus the government of Tokyo is spending much money to eradicate introduced species and protect endemic species. Ogasawara has a very high amount of endemic species, and the ecosystem has many open niches, resulting in a unique ecosystem that is easily threatened by introduced species and by development.

Anyways, we found some zoanthids (!) and anemones, so we return to Okinawa very happy. A big thanks to Yanagi-san and Sasaki-san for doing all the work to make this trip possible.

cheers! JDR

Short report ''Ishigaki trip''

We have come back from Ishigaki Island (Okinawa, Japan) .

However we have worried about the weather at first, it was nice weather.
We could make 3 dives on each 3 day!

It was a little cold under the water, but we had fun. There were a lot of hard & soft corals. Zoanthids were not plenty, but all of us found own samples.
Especially YI and CA collected many samples!

We also enjoyed fishing and flesh 'Sashimi (sliced raw fish-from Captain)' on the boat.

Yarabu-san & Captain, thank you very much for your support!
See you next GW!

Lab information

1. If you use the 5th floor lab space, please use our desk and do not use other lab desks.

2. New arrivals:
a. Large (100-1250μl) tips
b. Dry cabinet for digital cameras
c. MacPro computer with MS-Office (English version)


Feel free to use them!

Post-docs

MISE is looking for post-doc applicants from North America, Oceania, and Europe to apply for two-year fellowships sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Priority will be given to research projects investigating the ecology, taxonomy and/or phylogeny of marine invertebrates. MISE offers a great location in subtropical Okinawa with many field opportunities, and a clean and new lab. If you are interested or have questions, e-mail jreimer at sci.u-ryukyu.ac.jp

New MISE papers!

1. Sinniger, F., Häussermann, V., 2009. Zoanthids (Cnidaria: Hexacorallia: Zoantharia) from shallow waters of the southern Chilean fjord region, with descriptions of a new genus and two new species. Organisms Diversity and Evolution, 9: 23-36

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/14396092


2. Reimer, J. D., Sinniger, F., Nonaka, M., Uchida, S., 2009. Non-invasive internal morphological examination of epizoic zoanthids utilizing CT scanners. Coral Reefs

http://www.springerlink.com/content/k2644t2723016h00/