NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

The following project employed molecular techniques, along with supplemental bioinformatics to: 1) Test whether placozoans are occupying the water column 2) Describe the diversity of placozoans found within sea tables at Kewalo Marine Lab as well as samples from an open water site off Isla Magueyes, Puerto Rico and test whether there is haplotype/clade overlap and 3) Determine if it is possible to capture more of the diversity than previous work by analyzing a more variable region on the mitochondrion

Thirty samples from Kewalo Marine Lab, Hawaii and 14 samples from Puerto Rico were analyzed across two different genetic loci, namely 700 base pairs (bp) of the conserved mitochondrial 16S and 1300 bp of a more variable region spanning mitochondrial genes of the cytochrome oxidase subunit (cox) 2 and cox1.1a. Also samples were extracted from the water column, filtered and sequenced for the 16S region.