Meeting Abstract

P1.57  Monday, Jan. 4  The Role of Cryptochrome Photoreceptors in Regulation of Favia fragum Diel and Lunar Reproductive Cycle HOADLEY, Kenneth D*; SZMANT, Alina M; PYOTT, Sonja J; University of North Carolina Wilmington; University of North Carolina Wilmington; University of North Carolina Wilmington kdh7192@uncw.edu

Animals use environmental cues to coordinate cyclic patterns of behavior throughout their life cycles. In stony corals, including Favia fragum, the diel and also lunar cycle provide well-described environmental cues that synchronize biologically important events, including diel tentacle extension and retraction and monthly reproductive cycles timed to specific lunar phases. Recent evidence showed that cryptochromes, a group of blue light-sensing photoreceptors known to play a role in regulation of diel rhythms, were up regulated during a seasonal broadcast spawning event in the coral Acropora millepora. This finding suggests that these photoreceptors may play a role in synchronizing coral spawning events with the lunar cycle. We are using QRT-PCR and histological methods to investigate the correlation between cryptochrome transcript abundance and key reproductive events, including gametogenesis and planulation, in the lunar reproductive cycle of the stony coral Favia fragum collected near La Parguera, Puerto Rico. We will also look at how these genes fluctuate throughout the 24 hour diel cycle. We have confirmed that these corals express two cryptochrome genes (cry1 and cry2) along with other genes known to regulate the circadian cycle (Clock). Understanding how expression of these genes correlates with monthly and also daily biological events in F. fragum promises to increase our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that entrain stony corals and other invertebrates to environmental cues.