Dr. Alexis M Janosik

Microplastics are beads, fibers, fragments, and sheets smaller than 5 mm. Though tiny, microplastics, over the last several years, have been shown to be toxic to humans and other organisms (Wang, Zhao, and Xing 2021). Many coastal marine organisms, such as intertidal snails, manatees, and sea turtles, have been studied to find that they ingest microplastics. (Curl et al. 2023; Kleinschmidt and Janosik 2021; Gowans and Siuda 2023). Seagrass, another organism closely connected to the community of shoreline marine life, has also been studied to contain microplastics attached to epiphytes growing on seagrasses (Huang Yuzhou 2020; Seng et al. 2020). This study quantified and characterized microplastics embedded in Turtle and Shoal grasses. Water samples were also taken above the turtle and shoal grass to compare microplastic quantity and characteristics. Samples were taken from seagrass beds at Seaglades, Pensacola, FL, Woodlawn Beach, FL, and Navarre Beach Sound, Navarre, FL.

In hopes of expanding into self-established research, the first step is to become familiar with the procedures and day to day operations. The OUR works program offered an opportunity to do that under the supervision of an experienced and accomplished researcher, Dr. Alexis Janosik. The future goals that I have include conducting individual research which this program has been influential in attaining. The benefits however were not strictly scientific. I was also taught important professional etiquette and methods to employ to further my career. Advice from and one on one time with multiple outstanding members of the field is unparalleled in necessity.

he goal of this study is to establish an in-depth monthly trend of the amount and type of microplastics analyzed within sponge tissues to determine which month had the highest abundance of microplastics, and a concrete trend can be supported in order to create a better understanding of how the amount of microplastics change naturally overtime in marine ecosystems. Additionally, DNA barcoding will be employed on the sponge tissue sample to determine the taxonomic identification of the demosponge collected.

The lemon shark, Negaprion brevirostris, a member of the Carcharhinidae (requiem sharks) family in the order Carcharhiniformes (ground sharks), is commonly found in the coral reefs and mangrove forests in shallow subtropical waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Lemon sharks are powerful predators but have certain life history traits such as low fecundity, late sexual maturity, long lifespan, and slow growth rates which makes them more vulnerable to risks of extinction by anthropogenic effects such as overfishing, shark finning, and bycatch. They are also a common target for commercial fishers for their meat and fins, therefore being listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List (1). Lemon sharks are a key indicator species for the marine environment, if numbers start to decline it could mean species below are declining at a faster rate. Mitochondrial DNA can be used as a population genetic marker because of its high level of variability, maternal inheritance, and its neutral mode of evolution (2). In this study, we determined their complete mitochondrial genome, which can provide a better understanding into the evolutionary history of lemon sharks and how populations and other shark species differ from one another.