{"model":{"id":1616,"update_text":"

July up-date

","title":"July up-date","backers_only":false,"published_at":"2014-07-07T02:35:53.000-07:00","view_count":72,"publish_on":null,"url":"https://experiment.com/u/ZES5zw","image":null,"project_title":"The Life Cycle of a Coral Killer: the Acropora-Eating Flatworm","project_link":"https://experiment.com/projects/the-life-cycle-of-a-coral-killer-the-acropora-eating-flatworm","project_id":"the-life-cycle-of-a-coral-killer-the-acropora-eating-flatworm","user_id":8123,"likes":4,"comments":2,"save_url":"/updates/save","editor":"redactor","citations":[],"new_record":false,"is_published":true,"is_draft":false,"save_path":"/updates/save","file_attachments":[],"tags":[],"text_to_be_jsonified_for_read":"

July up-date

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July up-date

","private":false},"initialComments":[{"comment":"Hey Kate, Having lived through an AEFW meltdown in my reef tank (lost about 75% of my Acropora by volume, and 50% by type - heartbreak) I love that you and Cat have taken this research on. As a biology undergrad major I really appreciate some real science being applied as opposed to the normal anecdotal approach enjoyed by the hobby.:) With that being said are there additional ways we hobbyists can help out? You mention mRNA sequencing...this seems like something that only needs funding to accomplish, right? You also mention seeking grants for field work...is this something that the hobbyist community could help with? Let us know! Lance","id":5285,"user_id":16485,"shadowbanned":false,"likes_count":0,"type":null,"data_key":null,"highlighted_text":null,"user_show_page":"/users/lanceblackstone","user_avatar":"https://dgsqcxi9lxx8v.cloudfront.net/16485/19748_5278_150x150_circle.jpg","user_name":"Lance Blackstone","time_stamp":"2014-08-16T10:22:53.526-07:00","time_in_words":"almost 4 years","published_at":"Aug 16, 2014","active_depth":0,"depth_limited":false,"children":[{"comment":"Hi Lance, Thanks for the message and for offering more help from the hobbyist community, sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you. Yes, fieldwork to understand the AEFW in the wild and to look for its natural predators is the next step. However for the moment we’re concentrating on unraveling its life cycle in reef tanks and incorporating this data into a working protocol for how to deal with them. Once we have this then we’ll look for ways to get out to Lizard Island marine lab (Great Barrier Reef, Australia) where we’ve found the AEFW on the reef. We will set up tanks to look at predator-prey interactions and hopefully find some vertebrates and invertebrates that feed on the AEFW. There is obviously something, or more likely a combination of things, out there keeping their numbers down, as we only found 2-3 worms per Acropora valida colony. This fieldwork is very expensive unfortunately - for a four week trip we’re looking at more than $15,000 (this includes flights, marine lab accommodation and bench fees, dive gear rentals and boat use), so funding for this might come from a combination of sources; government funding agencies, small granting agencies and possibly from crowd-sourcing too. We’ll let you all know when we start this fund raising process! Until then we’ll keep you all up to date with the life cycle experiments - it’s been slow recently, with no new data, as Cat is working very hard to set up a second Acropora tank. Thanks for your interest and support. Kate","id":6575,"user_id":8123,"shadowbanned":false,"likes_count":0,"type":null,"data_key":null,"highlighted_text":null,"user_show_page":"/users/krawlinson","user_avatar":"https://dgsqcxi9lxx8v.cloudfront.net/8123/23593_9120_150x150_circle.jpg","user_name":"Kate Rawlinson","time_stamp":"2014-09-16T20:41:27.960-07:00","time_in_words":"over 3 years","published_at":"Sep 16, 2014","active_depth":1,"depth_limited":false,"children":[],"user_tag":"Researcher","likeable_type":"Comment","likeable_id":6575}],"user_tag":null,"likeable_type":"Comment","likeable_id":5285}]}