If you have ever been snorkeling or diving in S. Florida or Caribbean waters, the sight of a flat lilac or purple sea creature swaying upright with the surf and tide on the ocean floor probably caught your attention. You may not have paid it a second thought, but the common sea “fan”, looks just like that, and represents an icon of our nearby coral reefs. The sea fan has a beauty in its apparent fragility, which still can withstand and bend with those same currents and waves that can get stronger and even destructive with passing storms. The sea fan species, Gorgonia ventalina, belong in the Family Gorgoniidae, Order Malacalyconacea and are related to the scleractinian corals which build the reefs upon which the fan attaches. Unfortunately, both types of corals are endangered in much of the Caribbean, having similar stresses such as pollution and excessively warm waters that cause the loss of their symbiotic algae and bleaching.
The NSU Molecular Microbiology Laboratory (MMG) and National Coral Reef Institute at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center, along with international partners, the Wellcome Sanger Institutein the UK and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, have now helped publish the first chromosomal-level, whole nuclear genome of Gorgonia ventalina, the common sea fan. This is newest Wellcome Genome Note release as part of the ongoing Aquatic Symbiosis Genome (ASG) Project. Professor Nick Schizas of the University of Puerto Rico, was the lead investigator providing sea fan G. ventalina samples and has contributed multiple other reef invertebrate species which can photosynthesize. Although not a swimmer or predator, the sea fan is a marine invertebrate and can be an indicator of overall reef health, as it also holds symbiotic algae and microbes which tend to bleach when waters get too warm or polluted.
Schizas, N. V., García-Hernández, J. E., Lopez, J. V., Pruzinsky, N., Oatley, G., Sinclair, E., … & Portal, E.A. S. G. D. (2026). The chromosomal genome sequence of the common sea fan, Gorgonia ventalina (Linnaeus, 1758)(Malacalcyonacea: Gorgoniidae). Wellcome Open Research, 11, 14. https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/11-14/v1.
Photograph by Jaaziel E. García-Hernández at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.
Lopez Lab @ NSU 