Meeting Abstract
The octocoral Briareum asbestinum is found in the Caribbean, Bermudas and Bahamas shallow reefs and consists of two morphological forms: erect and encrusted, sometimes found next to each other. They provide habitat for a great variety of invertebrates and are among the most visually dominating soft corals of the Caribbean reefs. Previous studies have examined their genetic differences through comparison of the nuclear ribosomal ITS-1, a problematic locus due to concerted evolution. The research focus on the comparison of transcriptomes of both erect and encrusted forms of Briareum asbestinum. We will use the Illumina sequencer to generate a transcriptome for each ecotype. Pairwise deferences of gene expression and sequence analysis of new molecular markers derived from the transcriptomes will be used to compare the two octocoral forms.
