Where are you from, and what is your role in Extreme 2003?
I am a graduate student at Harvard University in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department. I joined the Cavanaugh lab this past year, and along with Dr. Tara Harmer, I will be “stalking the wild symbiont” of Riftia pachyptila. This mouthless and gut-less tubeworm is thought to acquire its symbionts from the environment during the larval stage. This is a peculiar strategy for an organism completely dependent on its bacterial partnership; this is equivalent to sending your toddler to day-care without a lunch. However, if the day-care provided lunch for your child, it should not be a problem. If Riftia is inoculated environmentally by its symbiont, we should expect to find the bacteria in free-living form.
What kinds of questions will you try to answer, and why?
In a natural habitat, an animal is never truly isolated; from the moment it leaves the womb — the most sterile environment it will ever inhabit — it comes into contact with other organisms. It was against this backdrop of continuous contact that life evolved. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that symbioses are so numerous. What interests me is the molecular interaction between organisms, and its evolutionary implications, in an ecological context.
What is your educational background? What lured you into marine research?
I graduated from Swarthmore College where I completed a thesis on the behavioral ecology of Uca pugnax — fiddler crabs. However, I can trace my interest in organismic interactions all the way back to elementary school when I first encountered slave-making ants. This is a startling example of behavioral adaptation, but one does not have to venture to the Amazon to find examples of the extended phenotype. Every single one of our cells harbors its own personal symbionts: mitochondria. As the scientific community becomes more aware, and with the tools of molecular biology in hand, we will find that few organisms on this planet live in isolation — perhaps none at all.
