Cassandra L. Ettinger edited Rationale_and_Significance_3_4__.md  over 8 years ago

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  Characterizing microbial eukaryotic diversity in seagrass beds is a labor-intensive process, requiring much time and multiple sampling efforts returning fresh samples. Therefore, we will focus our initial efforts on Zostera marina beds in Bodega Bay, California, where we have access to the Bodega Marine Laboratory and the required permits for collection. A variety of culturing conditions will be used to target fungi, amoeba  **Seagrass wasting disease (slime mold - Labyrinthula) is a microeukaryote and the disease is a huge problem for seagrass health/continues to desolate seagrass beds globally** - there is currently no genome for Labyrinthula zosterae that I can find in NCBI & looking at photos of it... I may have cultured it at MBL from seagrass leaves leaves/looking at papers it doesn't seem hard to culture  Fungal associations have been found to have beneficial effects on terrestrial plant fitness; for example, mycorrhizal fungi are involved in facilitating phosphorus and nitrogen uptake for their hosts.