Michael Henson
Northern Illinois University, IL·Ecology & Evolution
The long-spined sea urchin Diadema antillarum keeps Caribbean coral reefs healthy by grazing on algae that would otherwise crowd out corals. Mass die-offs of this urchin have been linked to a disease-causing ciliate, a single-celled organism from the Diadema antillarum scuticociliatosis Philaster clade (DaScPc).
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Microbiology & Immunology
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
Diadema antillarum
long-spined sea urchin
scuticociliatosis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Identify environmental reservoirs of the DaScPc ciliate parasite through time-series surveys of urchins, macroalgae and corals in the U.S. Virgin Islands, alongside measurements of ocean conditions and host density.
- Test whether DaScPc can re-emerge from corals and other nearby reef surfaces and then infect Diadema sea urchins, using field and experimental studies of infection dynamics.
- Determine how salinity, temperature and nutrients affect DaScPc growth and behavior, and whether reef bacteria serve as its prey or antagonists, using lab cultures and co-culture experiments.
- Characterize the microbiomes of healthy Diadema urchins from unaffected sites and test experimentally how microbiome variation changes the parasite–host relationship.
More about the research
Even though the culprit is known, scientists still know little about how the disease spreads and progresses. That makes future die-offs hard to predict or prevent.
Why it matters
Sea urchin die-offs can tip Caribbean reefs from coral toward algae and degrade the whole ecosystem. Learning where the parasite hides and what conditions favor outbreaks could help reef managers predict, detect early, and possibly mitigate future Diadema die-offs. The approach could also improve forecasting of other marine disease outbreaks.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ernesto Weil
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, PR·Ecology & Evolution
Measure how the bacterial community (microbiome) in tissue and mucus of susceptible corals such as Orbicella faveolata changes in makeup and abundance before, during and after SCTLD infection, using molecular profiling.
Carly Kenkel
University of Southern California, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether differences in staghorn coral shape plasticity are driven by changes in calcification and fine-scale skeletal deposition, using a lab water-flow experiment on clonal replicates of Acropora cervicornis genotypes.
Benjamin Glass
Boston University, MA·Ecology & Evolution
Profile temperature, oxygen and other abiotic conditions at a Bermuda coral reef to define realistic stress scenarios.
The school
Northern Illinois University: 3 labs on PI Pages, $34M a year on research, 134 research doctorates a year.
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