Alejandro Damian-Serrano

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• Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
• Instructor at University of Oregon

Significance Predatory specialization is often associated with the evolution of modifications in the morphology of the prey-capture apparatus. Specialization has been considered an evolutionary “dead end” due to the constraints associated with these morphological changes. However, in predators like siphonophores, armed with modular structures used...

Siphonophores are free-living predatory colonial hydrozoan cnidarians found in every region of the ocean. Siphonophore tentilla (tentacle side branches) are unique biological structures for prey capture, composed of a complex arrangement of cnidocytes (stinging cells) bearing different types of nematocysts (stinging capsules) and auxiliary structur...

Siphonophores (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) are abundant and diverse gelatinous predators in open-ocean ecosystems. Due to limited access to the midwater, little is known about the diets of most deep-dwelling gelatinous species, which constrains our understanding of food-web structure and nutrient flow in these vast ecosystems. Visual gut-content methods ca...

Salps are marine pelagic tunicates with a complex life cycle including a solitary and colonial stage composed of asexually budded individuals. These colonies develop into species-specific architectures with distinct zooid orientations, including transversal, oblique, linear, helical, and bipinnate chains, as well as whorls, and clusters. The evolut...

Salps are marine pelagic tunicates with a complex life cycle including a solitary and colonial stage. Salp colonies are composed of asexually budded individuals that coordinate their swimming by multi-jet propulsion. Colonies develop into species-specific architectures with distinct zooid orientations. These distinct colonial architectures vary in...

The open ocean is a vast, highly connected environment, and the organisms found there have been hypothesized to represent massive, well-mixed populations. Of these, the Portuguese man-o’-war ( Physalia ) is uniquely suited to dispersal, sailing the ocean surface with a muscular crest. We tested the hypothesis of a single, panmictic Physalia populat...

Helical motion is prevalent in nature and has been shown to confer stability and efficiency in microorganisms. However, the mechanics of helical locomotion in larger organisms (>1 centimeter) remain unknown. In the open ocean, we observed the chain forming salp, Iasis cylindrica , swimming in helices. Three-dimensional imaging showed that helicity...

Salps are marine pelagic tunicates with a complex life cycle including a solitary and colonial stage. Salp colonies are composed of asexually budded individuals that coordinate their swimming by multi-jet propulsion. Colonies develop into species-specific architectures with distinct zooid orientations. We hypothesize that colonial architecture driv...

Colonial animals are composed of clonal individuals that remain physically connected and physiologically integrated. Salps are tunicates with a dual life cycle, including an asexual solitary stage that buds sexual colonies composed of jet-propelling zooids that efficiently swim together as a single unit by multijet propulsion. Colonies from differe...

Gelatinous zooplankton are increasingly recognized as key components of pelagic ecosystems, and there have been many recent insights into their ecology and roles in food webs. To examine the trophic ecology of siphonophores (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa), we used bulk (carbon and nitrogen) and compound‐specific (nitrogen) isotope analysis of individual amino...

When microbial communities form, their composition is shaped by selective pressures imposed by the environment. Can we predict which communities will assemble under different environmental conditions? Here, we hypothesize that quantitative similarities in metabolic traits across metabolically similar environments lead to predictable similarities in...

Colonial animals are composed of clonal individuals that remain physically connected and physiologically integrated. Salps are urochordates with a dual life cycle including an asexual solitary stage that buds sexual colonies composed of jet-propelling zooids that efficiently swim together as a single unit by multi-jet propulsion. Colonies from diff...

Ungulate migrations are crucial for maintaining abundant populations and functional ecosystems. However, little is known about how or why migratory behaviour evolved in ungulates. To investigate the evolutionary origins of ungulate migration, we employed phylogenetic path analysis using a comprehensive species-level phylogeny of mammals. We found t...

Protocol for the SiphWeb DNA metabarcoding of siphonophore gut content. Starting with DNA extractions from pooled frozen gastrozooids, this protocol takes the user through the steps of PCR amplification, PCR cleanup and pooling of amplicons from six complementary 18S barcodes that can be submitted into an Illumina MiSeq Lane.

Protocol for the SiphWeb DNA metabarcoding of siphonophore gut content. Starting with DNA extractions from pooled frozen gastrozooids, this protocol takes the user through the steps of PCR amplification, PCR cleanup and pooling of amplicons from six complementary 18S barcodes that can be submitted into an Illumina MiSeq Lane.

Siphonophores are a clade of understudied colonial hydrozoans (Cnidaria) that are abundant predators in oceanic ecosystems, with species present across the water column. We (1) synthesize current knowledge about siphonophore trophic ecology and predator–prey interactions, (2) analyze siphonophore‐prey networks to compare food‐web topology between s...

The northern acorn barnacle (Semibalanus balanoides) is a robust system to study the genetic basis of adaptations to highly heterogeneous environments. Adult barnacles may be exposed to highly dissimilar levels of thermal stress depending on where they settle in the intertidal (i.e., closer to the upper or lower tidal boundary). For instance, barna...

Acorn barnacle adults experience environmental heterogeneity at various spatial scales of their circumboreal habitat, raising the question of how adaptation to high environmental variability is maintained in the face of strong juvenile dispersal and mortality. Here we show that 4% of genes in the barnacle genome experience balancing selection acros...

Acorn barnacle adults experience environmental heterogeneity at various spatial scales of their circumboreal habitat, raising the question of how adaptation to high environmental variability is maintained in the face of strong juvenile dispersal and mortality. Here we show that 4% of genes in the barnacle genome experience balancing selection acros...

The stunning diversity of midwater ctenophores is well-known to veterans of oceanographic cruises and ROV operations, but many species lack formal descriptions, leading to taxonomic confusion and a systematic underestimation of the biodiversity of the mesopelagic zone. Here, we present a description of a novel genus and species of one such ctenopho...

Protocol for the SiphWeb DNA metabarcoding of siphonophore gut content. Starting with DNA extractions from pooled frozen gastrozooids, this protocol takes the user through the steps of PCR amplification, PCR cleanup and pooling of amplicons from six complementary 18S barcodes that can be submitted into an Illumina MiSeq Lane.

Predator specialization has often been considered an evolutionary ‘dead-end’ due to the constraints associated with the evolution of morphological and functional optimizations throughout the organism. However, in some predators, these changes are localized in separate structures dedicated to prey capture. One of the most extreme cases of this modul...

Siphonophores have the most complex and regularly organized nematocyst batteries of all Cnidaria. These structures are held on the tentacles’ side branches called tentilla. Tentilla serve as the principal organs for prey capture, making siphonophores an ideal system for the study of trophic specialization from an evolutionary approach. Modern compa...

Contaminants of emerging concern consist of a large array of anthropogenic and natural substances such as antibiotics. Recently, the European Union (Decision 2015/495/EU) published a list of antibiotics that deserve special environmental attention to be monitored. Among them, the macrolide; erythromycin is under prioritize evaluation. Phytoplankton...

Siphonophores are a diverse group of hydrozoans (Cnidaria) that are found at most depths of the ocean - from the surface, like the familiar Portuguese man of war, to the deep sea. They play important roles in ocean ecosystems, and are among the most abundant gelatinous predators. A previous phylogenetic study based on two ribosomal RNA genes provid...

Siphonophores are a diverse group of hydrozoans (Cnidaria) that are found at all depths of the ocean - from the surface, like the familiar Portuguese man of war, to the deep sea. Siphonophores play an important role in ocean ecosystems, and are among the most abundant gelatinous predators. A previous phylogenetic study based on two ribosomal RNA ge...

We present a description of a genus and species of mertensiid ctenophore that is new to science. This ctenophore, collected in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean in the mesopelagic waters off the coast of Delaware, has striking, bright red mesoglea and a darkly pigmented gut and appears well-adapted to life in the mesopelagic zone. A molecular phylogenet...

Siphonophores have the most complex and regularly organized nematocyst batteries of all Cnidaria. These structures are held on the tentacles’ side branches called tentilla. Tentilla serve as the principal organs for prey capture, making siphonophores an ideal system for the study of trophic specialization from an evolutionary approach. Modern compa...

Siphonophores are colonial hydrozoans that are free living predators in the plankton of the oceans worldwide. Understanding their biology has been a historical challenge due to their extreme fragility, as their colony structure disintegrates during plankton tows. The Dunn lab studies diverse aspects of siphonophore biology, including morphology, ph...

In the frame of the European MedSeA project research cruise (May 2013) zooplankton samples were collected by multi-net system (MOCNESS, covering the upper 600m) and Bongo nets (at 200m) from 21 stations distributed along the entire Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic off Cadiz, Spain, to the Levantine Basin. At the same time biotic and abiotic para...

Siphonophores are an understudied clade of colonial hydrozoans, ubiquitous in the global ocean. They are abundant gelatinous planktonic predators, voracious consumers of crustaceans and fish larvae, with prominent predatory impact on the food webs. The unique and and fragile nematocyst batteries (tentilla) in the tentacles are of outstanding value...

During the MedSeA project Cruise (May 2013) plankton samples were collected by multi-net system (MOCNESS) covering the upper 600m and plankton nets (Bongo) at 200m. A main aim of this study is to improve our understanding of the environmental factors controlling the understudied gelatinous plankton distribution in the Mediterranean Sea. Zooplankton...

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) has set the goal of attaining an Ecological Quality Status (EQS) of at least “Good” for all its natural water masses by 2015. The Gulf of Valencia is a region with a high economic dependence on the quality of its rich coastal ecosystems which supports a significant influx of summer tourism and fishing in...

The Spanish province of Castellón has a significant affluence from its fisheries. The breeding and nursing grounds of many commercial fish and crustacean species exploited in the region extend within the sublittoral zone. The distribution of the different benthic communities and facies has been largely understudied. Environmental management strateg...

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) encourages the use of the Ecological Quality Status (EQS) as a qualitative measure to facilitate environmental evaluation and application of conservation policies. For the past 9 years, both the BOPA and the AMBI indices were used to assess the EQS of the coastal waters off the Gulf of Valencia. The BOPA...

Ctenophores (comb jellies) are planktonic organisms that have many genetic anomalies. Many genes of their reduced mitochondrial genome are missing or have been relocated to the nuclear genome (Pett, et al. 2011) and their 18S sequences across the phylum are among the least divergent. There are also many high-level lineages (family and above) which...

The outstanding diversity and adaptive radiation of ctenophores in the homogeneous pelagic realm, where niche overlap is high and barriers to genetic exchange are diffuse, remains a mystery of the Plankton Paradox. This study aims to estimate the phylogenetic relationships between extant ctenophores, and develop a preliminary theory on their divers...

Phytoplankton biomass in Mediterranean coastal systems follows a seasonal trend, interfered by non-seasonal variations due to random influential events. Many of the factors that drive the dynamics of phytoplankton biomass are abiotic, related to turbulence, temperature and nutrient input. Our objective is to elucidate the influence that intrinsic e...

Biometric study with the objective of discriminating species, sizes, masses and maturity stages of cephalopods which are prey of large pelagic fish of commercial interest based on the morphometry of the chitinous jaws found in the stomach contents of these fishes.