Over the past two weeks, graduate students Michael Studivan and Ryan Eckert participated in the MEGA workshop run by Dr. Misha Matz (UT Austin) at Mote's International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration. The workshop consisted of two portions: the 2bRAD pipeline used to examine population connectivity, and the TagSeq portion used to identify differences in gene expression. The lab and bioinformatics skills learned in the workshop will actively contribute to the completion of graduate research projects in the Voss Lab, including Michael's and Ryan's projects describing mesophotic coral ecology in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

To learn more about the MEGA workshop, please visit their site here. To learn more about the brand new IC2R3 facilities at Mote on Summerland Key, click here.

As Leg 2 winds down on the CIOERT Cuba expedition, we reflect back on the amazing reefs explored and characterized in conjunction with our Cuban collaborators. Details of our activities, including a summary of our findings on Cuba's north east coast, can be found in the Mission Logs on the NOAA Ocean Explorer page here. In addition to the vast information on benthic and fish communities in Cuba's meosphotic zone, Dr. Joshua Voss and PhD Candidate Michael Studivan have also collected 148 coral samples across both legs that will be used for future analyses of connectivity among coral populations from Cuba, Florida, Flower Garden Banks, and Belize. 

Check back on the Ocean Explorer page for more information and the mission summary as the expedition is concluded. Finally, this video put together by Michael Studivan highlights some of the spectacular reef species encountered on Cuba's mesophotic reefs.