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Library and Education
The information provided in this section is intended to serve as a resource for
those interested in corals, their health and disease, their culture in the laboratory,
and their biology/physiology in general. It includes helpful ‘links’ to NOAA educational
materials, publications, bibliographies, images & databases.
Two specialized resources provided are the 'Protocols online' and 'Outbreak Training
Modules':
- Coral Protocols Online (CPO) is the latest addition to the CDHC website (in beta
testing). CPO is an online coral community resource intended to be a living document
that provides up-to-date protocols, laboratory methods and techniques to support
scientific research in coral health-related topics. Each of the protocols is available
for download as a pdf.
- Coral Disease Outbreak Training Modules provide an in-depth discussion and illustration
of the process involved in the investigation of a coral disease outbreak. There
are 8 modules available, each linked to a pdf file that has the presenter notes
available via a toggle on-off icon. The original Powerpoint presentations underpinning
these modules may be obtained by request; for further information
cdhc.coral@noaa.gov
Three resources that are planned for the future are 'Protocols online', 'Outbreak
Training Modules', and 'Coral Genomics':
- The photoessays provide snapshots (Text accompanied by images) of specific topics
of interest such as 'What is a Coral?' 'Do Corals get Sick?' 'What is Coral Disease?'
and 'What gives Coral their color?'
- Self-paced courses in coral histology & histopathology are planned for the near
future. These lessons will be totally independent of traditional sample preparation
& microscopy. Previously prepared and scanned histology slides will be available
to support the lesson plans. This process takes advantage of the internet and the
technology, virtual microscopy.
- Coral Genomics provides a centralized source to access and explore bioinformatic
resources and tools (and specific LINKS) to mine coral genomic information that
is readily available in public databases. Also included in this site is instructional
information from the course ‘Genomics for Non-genomics Scientists’ that introduces
the language of genome science and provides practical experience in the use of genomic
tools: accessing publically available coral data sets to identify protein coding
sequences among libraries of cDNA sequences; exploring microbial communities through
their DNA; annotating a gene; delving into the world of microarrays; and a peek
into next generation sequencing and the possibilities it has to offer.