Kimberly B. Ritchie | |
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Marine Biology |
| Institutions | University of South Carolina Beaufort |
Kimberly B. Ritchie is an American marine biologist. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. [1] [2] Her research is focused on marine microbiology and how microbes affect animal health in hosts such as corals and sharks. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ritchie was born in Aiken, South Carolina in 1962. [5] She is the daughter of Robert E. and Frances M. Beach. [5] Her father was a Forester and her mother was a high school teacher. [5] She grew up on a farm in Walterboro, South Carolina and graduated from Walterboro High School. [5] Ritchie obtained a B.S. in Biology from the University of South Carolina Aiken in 1994 and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2000. [1] She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama in the summer of 2000 and a postdoctoral scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego until 2001. [1]
After finishing her postdoctoral training Ritchie worked as a Senior Scientist (2001-2004) in drug discovery in the Marine Microbiology Division at MicroGenomics, Inc., in Carlsbad, California. [1] She then became a Staff Scientist (2004-2008) and subsequently a Senior Scientist (2008-2016) at Mote Marine Laboratory where she was the manager of the Marine Microbiology Program, focusing broadly on coral reef ecology, microbial ecology, marine diseases, beneficial microbial associates of marine organisms and drug discovery. [1] In 2016, Ritchie was recruited to the University of South Carolina Beaufort where she is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Prokaryotic Cell Biology [1] [3] [4]
Ritchie is a pioneer in uncovering the importance of microbes in coral holobionts. [3] [4] [6] She was a leader in studying the microbiology of coral diseases as they increased in abundance in the Caribbean and worldwide at a time when very little work was done on coral microbiology. [3] She identified pathogens that caused coral diseases such as Aspergillosis, White Pox, and White Plague. She later examined the role of potentially beneficial bacteria in coral health.[3] Using a novel selection screen, she was the first to show that healthy corals harbor bacteria that produce antibiotics and that these bacteria are replaced with potentially pathogenic marine bacteria when temperatures increase on coral reefs. [4] This beneficial role of antibiotic production helps regulate the balance of the coral microbiome and provides a first line of defense for corals against marine pathogens. [4] Her subsequent work assigned roles for coral beneficial bacteria in cell-cell-signal mediated regulation of coral pathogens and suggested a role for beneficial bacteria in probiotic therapies. [4] Her work has also included research on shark microbiomes and beneficial roles of bacterial associates on elasmobranch (shark, skate and ray) epidermal surfaces [1] [3]
During her years at Mote Marine Laboratory, Ritchie led a popular NSF REU [7] summer research program in estuarine and coastal sciences. [8] At USCB, she teaches Coral Reef Ecology, Marine Policy and Marine Microbiology and continues to mentor undergraduate students in marine microbial research. [1]
Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.
Acropora is a genus of small polyp stony coral in the phylum Cnidaria. Some of its species are known as table coral, elkhorn coral, and staghorn coral. Over 149 species are described. Acropora species are some of the major reef corals responsible for building the immense calcium carbonate substructure that supports the thin living skin of a reef.
White band disease is a coral disease that affects acroporid corals and is distinguishable by the white band of exposed coral skeleton that it forms. The disease completely destroys the coral tissue of Caribbean acroporid corals, specifically elkhorn coral and staghorn coral. The disease exhibits a pronounced division between the remaining coral tissue and the exposed coral skeleton. These symptoms are similar to white plague, except that white band disease is only found on acroporid corals, and white plague has not been found on any acroporid corals. It is part of a class of similar disease known as "white syndromes", many of which may be linked to species of Vibrio bacteria. While the pathogen for this disease has not been identified, Vibrio carchariae may be one of its factors. The degradation of coral tissue usually begins at the base of the coral, working its way up to the branch tips, but it can begin in the middle of a branch.
Black band disease is a coral disease in which corals develop a black band. It is characterized by complete tissue degradation due to a pathogenic microbial consortium. The mat is present between apparently healthy coral tissue and freshly exposed coral skeleton.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is a Florida State Park located on Key Largo in Florida. It includes approximately 70 nautical square miles (240 km2) of adjacent Atlantic Ocean waters. The park is approximately 25 miles in length and extends 3 miles into the Atlantic Ocean along the prominent Hawk Channel passage. It was the first underwater park in the United States. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1972. The primary attractions of the park are the coral reefs and their associated marine life.
The staghorn coral is a branching, stony coral, within the Order Scleractinia. It is characterized by thick, upright branches which can grow in excess of 2 meters in height and resemble the antlers of a stag, hence the name, Staghorn. It grows within various areas of a reef but is most commonly found within shallow fore and back reefs, as well as patch reefs, where water depths rarely exceed 20 meters. Staghorn corals can exhibit very fast growth, adding up to 5 cm in new skeleton for every 1 cm of existing skeleton each year, making them one of the fastest growing fringe coral species in the Western Atlantic. Due to this fast growth, Acropora cervicornis, serve as one of the most important reef building corals, functioning as marine nurseries for juvenile fish, buffer zones for erosion and storms, and center points of biodiversity in the Western Atlantic.
Acanthemblemaria spinosa, the spinyhead blenny, is a species of blenny native to the tropical western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Elkhorn coral is an important reef-building coral in the Caribbean. The species has a complex structure with many branches which resemble that of elk antlers; hence, the common name. The branching structure creates habitat and shelter for many other reef species. Elkhorn coral is known to grow quickly with an average growth rate of 5 to 10 cm per year. They can reproduce both sexually and asexually, though asexual reproduction is much more common and occurs through a process called fragmentation.
Skeletal eroding band (SEB) is a disease of corals that appears as a black or dark gray band that slowly advances over corals, leaving a spotted region of dead coral in its wake. It is the most common disease of corals in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and is also found in the Red Sea.
White pox disease, first noted in 1996 on coral reefs near the Florida Keys, is a coral disease affecting Elkhorn coral throughout the Caribbean. It causes irregular white patches or blotches on the coral that result from the loss of coral tissue. These patches distinguish white pox disease from white band disease which produces a distinctive white band where the coral skeleton has been denuded. The blotches caused by this disease are also clearly differentiated from coral bleaching and scars caused by coral-eating snails. It is very contagious, spreading to nearby coral.
Acropora prolifera, the fused staghorn coral, is a branching, colonial, stony coral found in shallow parts of the Caribbean Sea, the Bahamas and southern Florida.
Caribbean Research and Management of Biodiversity Foundation is a research organization in Curaçao, former Netherlands Antilles. It is situated in Piscadera Bay, 25 metres (82 ft) from the Caribbean Sea. Its education and research programs include the ecological aspects of fisheries and coral reef sciences.
Halomonas meridiana is a bacterial species discovered in 1990 in the hypersaline lakes of Vestfold Hills, Antarctica.
Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) is a disease of corals that first appeared off the southeast coast of Florida in 2014. It originally was described as white plague disease. By 2019 it had spread along the Florida Keys and had appeared elsewhere in the Caribbean Sea. The disease destroys the soft tissue of at least 22 species of reef-building corals, killing them within weeks or months of becoming infected. The causal agent is unknown but is suspected to be either a bacterium or a virus with a bacterium playing a secondary role. The degree of susceptibility of a coral, the symptoms, and the rate of progression of the disease vary between species. Due to its rapid spread, high mortality rate, and lack of subsidence, it has been regarded as the deadliest coral disease ever recorded, with wide-ranging implications for the biodiversity of Caribbean coral reefs.
Kristen Marhaver is a marine biologist studying coral reefs and specializing in coral ecology, reproduction, and conservation. Marhaver is a senior scientist at CARMABI Marine Research Station. Marhaver was part of the group of scientists that successfully used frozen Elkhorn coral sperm to fertilize live coral eggs to raise the first lab-reared juveniles in nurseries. Some of the sperm and eggs were from geographically isolated corals of the same species. Their success allows for the possibility of breeding corals to be more resistant to increasing ocean water temperatures by breeding corals that already survive at warmer temperatures with those that live at colder temperatures.
Jamaica, an island located within the Caribbean Sea, known for being a popular tourist destination because of its pristine white sand beaches, is now faced with the issue of mass coral depletion. Both environmental and human factors contribute to the destruction of these corals, which inevitably affect Jamaica's environmental sustainability and economy. Actions have been put in place to counteract the negative consequences associated with the loss of the corals, which act as a symbol of hope for the revival of Jamaica's environment.
All animals on Earth form associations with microorganisms, including protists, bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses. In the ocean, animal–microbial relationships were historically explored in single host–symbiont systems. However, new explorations into the diversity of marine microorganisms associating with diverse marine animal hosts is moving the field into studies that address interactions between the animal host and a more multi-member microbiome. The potential for microbiomes to influence the health, physiology, behavior, and ecology of marine animals could alter current understandings of how marine animals adapt to change, and especially the growing climate-related and anthropogenic-induced changes already impacting the ocean environment.
Andia Chaves Fonnegra is a Colombian marine biologist known for her research on the marine sponge Cliona delitrix.
Rebecca Vega Thurber is an American microbial ecologist and coral reef scientist. She is the Pernot distinguished chair of microbiology at Oregon State University since 2020. She is a team leader of the Tara Pacific expedition and co-producer of the coral reef documentary Saving Atlantis.
Iliana B. Baums is a professor at Pennsylvania State University known for her work on coral reef ecology.
| Authority control databases: Academics |
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