During my mentorship I learned many concepts surrounding DNA analysis and spent extensive amounts of time analyzing the DNA of cownose rays to study migration and reproductive patterns.
I would like to thank Dr. Jan McDowell for being my mentor. Education of the public is also important, to let people know that those shark-like tips rising from the water are not signs of monsters to be feared and hated.
They both have helped to revise this paper along with performing some procedures such as PCR. Using DNA analysis, Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) researchers have found that the population on the East Coast may not be as geographically extensive as originally assumed. Although industry has argued for a ray fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, overfishing the East Coast stock could risk wiping it out for good. At full term, the offspring are born live, exiting tail first. With this in mind and with the information that most females are pregnant before leaving the birthing grounds each year (Chesapeake Bay Program 2012) the data suggests that the population of cownose rays is fairly segregated to the two breeding grounds with minimal interbreeding. Estimates of the cownose ray population on the East Coast range anywhere from 200,000 to tens of millions, he said. The ND4 locus was variable and demonstrated clear grouping, however this locus was much more difficult to amplify than ND2 and. In addition, Kristy Hill also taught me how to do most of the procedures required by my project. The Mixed haplotype was found in 9 rays found in the Gulf of Mexico and 16 rays found in the Chesapeake Bay. Custal W: improving the sensitivity of progressive sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Every May, flocks of winged creatures soar just beneath the waves from the Atlantic Ocean into the Chesapeake Bay. Currently, the population of the cownose ray is unknown, and the species is slow to reproduce. A. J. Erskine, President of the Virginia Seafood Council, said he does not believe that oysters make up only a small portion of the ray diet. [1], A cownose ray is typically brown-backed with a whitish or yellowish belly. Some genetic variation was found to be unique to one nursery; this enforcing the need for well-informed regulatory practices to protect the ray’s biodiversity as a fishery in one nursery could destroy irreplaceable biodiversity. Although some oyster farmers consider rays as oyster-eating machines, in fact "oysters... were not found to make up a significant portion of the diet of cownose rays," according to Fisher's NOAA report. Gloucester Point, VA
This was completed to determine if overfishing and population depletion in one nursery will harm just that population or the entire population. A ray reaching a span of 84 inches (2.1 m) has been recorded. “We’ve just scratched the surface.”. From the data, the null hypothesis that there is no genetic divergence between the two nurseries and that the population is completely interbreeding was proven to be false with the alternate hypothesis that there is segregated breeding between the nurseries. Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay, however there is a very low amplification success. Transfer each QIAquick column into a 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tube. Cownose Rays At A Glance. Fisher, VIMS extension staff affiliated with Virginia Sea Grant, was the co-author of the study. [4] The Atlantic migration pattern consists of the cownose rays moving north in late Spring and moving south in late Fall. Cownose rays eat mollusks including oysters, razor clams, macorma, and softshell clams. The above methods were first completed for 5 loci with a subset of 8 rays from the Chesapeake Bay and 8 rays from the Gulf of Mexico to determine the most variable loci. Pluses denote the Chesapeake while minuses denote the Gulf.