Department of Biology

Lab to study Vibrio pathogen infection in coral to better understand disease in endangered coral reef ecosystems.

Excitement was in her voice as Victoria Lydick, who oversees the new coral facility at IU Bloomington, explained the purpose of the tanks and other equipment in the lab. Lydick is a research associate in the laboratory of` Associate Professor Julia van Kessel.

The National Science Foundation and its internationally funded Binational Science Foundation have awarded a grant to van Kessel and colleagues to study the coral reef ecosystem. Specifically, the researchers hope to gain a better understanding of how to help maintain coral reefs by learning how the coral pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus interacts with its environment in a coral host.

About half of the world’s total coral reef cover has been lost since the 1950s due to many causes—including anthropogenic climate change, disease outbreaks, destructive fishing practices, and pollution. Increases in ocean temperature due to climate change correlate with increased disease incidence and outbreaks in coral.

The bacterium V. coralliilyticus is a primary and opportunistic pathogen that infects numerous species of coral and causes bleaching and tissue loss, as well as potentially exacerbating the effects of other diseases.

The van Kessel lab—which specializes in quorum sensing, a cell-cell communication signaling process used by some bacteria—and colleagues hypothesize that quorum sensing signaling and temperature variations control virulence genes of V. coralliilyticus that are critical to the bacteria’s ability to infect coral. They will investigate how temperature, other bacteria, and communications between V. coralliilyticus populations alter the ability of the pathogens to cause coral diseases. The researchers will identify and examine virulence factors controlled by primary systems that respond to the environment as well as examine how each of these systems influences coral colonization and disease progression in a live coral infection model and its microbiome.

With guidance from Blake Ushijima, an assistant professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington, and his graduate students, Lydick continues to prepare the IU facility for the coral.

“We’ll be using the coral species Pocillopora damicornis for our research,” said Lydick. “This species is a branching coral which makes it important for reef structure in coastal reefs. It is an incredibly hardy coral species which makes it suitable for aquaculture experiments.”

Lydick grew up in northwest Indiana near Chicago. As a first-generation college student, she completed her bachelor’s degree in Marine Science with a concentration in Marine Biology at University of Maine.

Lydick spent spring 2017 studying abroad at James Cook University–Townsville in Queensland, Australia. She focused on courses in coral physiology, coral reef morphology, and coastal animal conservation. While interning at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, she was mentored by two graduate students on projects researching the effects of climate change conditions on hard coral and sea sponges. Lydick maintained coral/sponge tanks and assisted in lab work.

In pursuit of a career in academia, Lydick began working in the van Kessel lab at IU Biology in 2019. She was promoted in August 2022 to research associate and now oversees the new coral facility.