Ian and Brayan traveled to the Smithsonian Museum Archives in Washington DC to sample tissues and coelomic fluid of Diadema antillarum from specimens collected around the 1983-1984 mass mortality. While no abnormal specimens exist of the mortality, urchins from around the geographic location of the condition were collected and preserved in ethanol some years ago. Brayan since surveyed their microbiomes, understanding how museum collection conditions alter them, and also detected DaScPc-like sequences in these specimens as well.

Publications from this expedition:

Vilanova Cuevas B, Hewson I (2026) “Scuticociliate Detection and Microbiome Composition in Museum Collections of Diadema antillarum” biorxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.24.690235