Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸

@calebcbutler.com

1275 Followers 392 Following

Marine ecologist, leftist, cat parent | Postdoc at Texas State University in the Fuess & González-Pech Labs | LaJeunesse Lab PhD Alum | they/he 🏳️‍🌈🧪🦠🪸 tags: coral, ecology, psu, algae, phycology, enby AI art spam = block

Image of Wednesday, a domestic short hair cat with black fur, above the camera's POV and staring directly down at the camera.
Pete, my long hair domestic cat thats mostly white white some grey splotches looking very concerned inside a pet crate inside a car. There is a blue blanket underneath him. Behind him, with a separator in the crate, is my partner's cat, Wednesday, a black short hair domestic cat. She's just looking to the side, much less concerned than Pete.
Pete, my long hair domestic cat with white and grey splotches facing forward, sitting up, clueless and just casually staring at me taking the picture. Behind him is Wednesday, my partner's short hair domestic also in the same position staring forward.
Pete, my long hair domestic cat with zigzagging white and grey hair, sits on the wooden floor with a carpet stretched out. Pete is watching Wednesday, my partner's short hair domestic cat that is all black. Wednesday is up close sniffing Pete's (historically) bad back foot he is very sensitive about.
Image of me in a tan suit wearing a bolo tie standing in front of my dissertation defense title screen, with an (unintentionally) smug face.
Image of a long hair black and white cat curled up in a white cat bed holding an orange toy. There is a figure of a peacock mantis shrimp on top of him. He looks confused and or concerned.
Image of Stardew Valley with a chest and inventory open. Two ancient seeds are visible, but the description is filled out on, indicating I've already donated a third one to the museum in game. The top right date is the 7th of Spring (end of first week in game).
LinkedIn Post from the CEO of ThermoFisher, Marc Casper: "Committed to our customers and advancing innovation in the U.S. I was honored to represent Thermo Fisher Scientific at the White House where President Trump recognized an investment our company is making to advance science and innovation in the United States. Thermo Fisher has announced that we are investing an additional $2 billion over the next four years to strengthen our capabilities in the U.S. We made this commitment so we can be an even stronger partner for our customers. Ultimately, these investments will help to strengthen American innovation, manufacturing and economic competitiveness in the life sciences sector. It is my greatest honor to represent our company when meeting with world leaders. I always lead with our purpose - our Mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. The work we do every day helps to improve lives and make the world a better place. So, we'll keep building our capabilities to advance our Mission and create an even brighter future for all. Thank you to our colleagues all over the world for making this possible."
Image of a yellow cybertruk parked with the words "The Beauty of Science is to Make Things Simple" with Zymo's logo in the bottom right.
Screenshot of edits pane from Microsoft Word. Top edit is in blue and has my name formatted as "Butler, Caleb" and Bottom edit is in red and has my name formatted as "Caleb Butler".
Screenshot of text "May 16th" but the 6t and superscript, when you'd typically expect dates to formatting with the "th" as the superscript (as it should be). Thanks Microsoft Outlook.
Image of a placebo email to a fake email "PersonWithCoolImage@someemail.com" Subject: Image Use? Body: Hello PersonWithCoolImage, I saw your cool image and thought it would work well for my presentation/article/post/class/other. Would you be comfortable if I used it? I will of course give credit. Thank you, Caleb Butler
Image of my other 3D Plot. Dots are bigger and uniform now. Similar angle and results as previous 3D plot.
Image of a 2D PCA Plot with various colors. There are 8 individual groups, forming two clusters. PC1 is 13.4% and PC2 is 9%.
A screenshot from my powerpoint. There are two ovals, one purple, one pinkish-orange. Inside each are two more ovals here, green in the purple, yellow in the pinkish-orange, but the two yellow and one green have lost their transparency so there are white boxes around them.
An image of a coral reef surrounded by a light yellow border. The reef is slanted from down to up from left to right. There are multiple soft corals and hard corals visible. Notably in the center are two Sarcophytidae (that resemble your standard Sarcophyton, but I've done the genetics, it's a cryptic group!), one with its polyps out with a light brown hue, and another one beside it with its polyps retracted looking light blue. There is another soft coral below them that resembles a Lobophytum with its polyps out. You can make out a few hard corals, some encrusting Pachyseris, a bouldering Porites, and another bouldering Favites (maybe). A few small fish are visible in the background. In the top left is bold all-caps text "BIOLOGY IS ROOTED IN" in yellow and in the bottom right similarly, but marginally larger, "SPECIFICITY" in a coral pink.
Figure from Bongaerts et al. 2021. split into multiple parts. Figure caption below. A.) shows an underwater colony of more plate-like Pachyseris speciosa. B.) shows the range of the species and the five sampling regions un the study (Gulf of Aqaba, Okinawa, Papua New Guinea, Western Coral Sea, and the Great Barrier Reef). C.) shows the different sampling depths done from 10m-60m. D.) includes assembly summary statistics for the genome (Size: 984 Mb, Predicted size: 886 Mb, Predicted genes: 39,160, Completeness: 90.5% BUSCO, E.) Includes a circular phylogenetic seeing differentation by site and partitioning into four major lineages. F.) Is an admixture analysis based off of the whole genome sequencing of the organisms, but only of representative samples from the GBR, finding decent homogeneity across sites, but differs more when examining depth in G). Figure 1. Overview of the study system and sequencing/genotyping approach (A) Pachyseris speciosa colonies at 40 m depth (Western Coral Sea). (B) Predicted geographic distribution38 of Pachyseris speciosa sensu lato and the five sampling regions. (C) Sampled habitats and their corresponding water depths (±3 m). (D) Genome assembly summary statistics. (E) Circular phylogenetic tree summarizing the reduced-representation sequencing data (nextRAD; 8,536 SNPs) and showing the partitioning into four major lineages. Sample region is indicated in the inner surrounding circle and sample selection for whole-genome sequencing is indicated in the outer surrounding circle. (F) Admixture proportion (PCAngsd) based on whole-genome resequencing (WGS; ~37M SNPs) of representative samples from the three lineages occurring on the Great Barrier Reef. (G) Geographic and ecological distribution of the lineages across habitats and regions (excluding Israel) based on the CAPS genotyping assay (1–3 markers per sample) merged with the nextRAD data (note that assignments for Okinawa are based exclusively on nextRAD data).
A select screenshot from Quek et al. 2023, focusing on the hard coral families Rhizangiidae, Agariciidae, Pachyseridae, and Euphyllidae. Pachyseridae is between Agariciidae and Euphyllidae, but noticably divergent from both, supporting that Pachyseris deserves its own family.
A figure with three unrooted maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees. Among the three trees, there are extensions from each one that are all encircled in one circle, representing family Agariicidae. The trees are from the 28s ribosomal large subunit, the 16s ribosomal small subunit, and a mitochondrial gene, the CO1. On each tree there are also other circles, representing another taxonomic group colloquially referred to as "robust corals" (story for another day). Highlighted, I have P. speciosa, which is notably, not in the circle with the other Agariciids on the CO1 tree. Figure caption below: "Fig. 1. Unrooted most likely trees derived from maximum likelihood analysis of partial 16S rDNA, partial CO1, and partial 28S rDNA nucleotide sequences. Values near each node indicate the maximum likelihood (ML) Shimodaira–Hasegawa-like statistical support followed by bootstrap (100 replicate) analyses, and Bayesian Inference (BI) posterior probability (7500 topologies). An asterisk (*) in the CO1 reconstruction indicates discrepancy between the ML and BI (different branching from BI is indicated in red). Dark shaded area indicates Agariciidae clade and light shaded areas indicate the ‘Robust’ coral clades. Dashed lines bridge the end of each branch and its respective species name."
Image from Veron's Scleractinia of Eastern Australia (Part III). It shows four different P. rugosa skeletons of different morphologies, each with a label accompanying them. The skeletons are white on black background. The two of them have branching morphologies, similar to mentioned earlier, and another has a more columnar morphology. Finally the fourth one has more of a "fan" morphology, probably related to the original "lettuce" description of these colonies. Original image caption: Figs. 131-134 Pachyseris rugosa (x 0.5). Fig. 131 From Butterfly Bay, Hook Island, Whitsunday Islands, collecting station 98. Fig. 132 From Cateran Bay, Border Island, Whitsunday Islands, collecting station 101, showing close similarity with the holotype of P. torresiana. [My note: P. torresiana was reconciled under P. rugosa later too.] Figs. 133, 134 From Sue Island, collecting station 17.
Image of a more encrusting/massive P. rugosa, still with its trippy undulating lines and large ridges and septa. This colony is more of a white than the previous orange ones. IC: Emre Turak and Lyndon DeVantier
Diagram of a hexacoral (hard coral) corallite. It is circular and divided into six-fold symmetry with six large primary septa that divide up the circular corallite, and then divided further by secondary and tertiary septa. In between these septa is the theca, and the center, where the main mouth-hole is, is the columella. IC: NOAA
Screenshot from Lamarck's 1816 Histoire naturelle des animeux sans vertébras, scanned on yellowed paperment. Original text in French: 3. Agarice ridée. Agaricia rugosa. A. frondibus brevibus, undato-contortis, rugosissimis; rugis confertis, elevatis, irregularibus, lamelloso-striatis. Mus. n.o Habite les mers australes. Péron et le Sueur. Elle est sin- gulièrement ridée en dessus, et ses rides sont élevées, ser- rées les unes contre les autres, inégales, contournées, et transversalement striées par de petites lames. Le dessous de ses expansions est nu, avec des stries fines vers les bords; mais ces expansions se contournent et souvent se replient de manière que leur surface supérieure est la seule apparente. Les étoiles ne paraissent point. Google Translation (sorry French speakers if this is astoundingly wrong): 3. Wrinkled agarice. Agaricia rugosa. A. frondibus brevibus, undato-contortis, rugosissimis; rugis confertis, elevatis, irregularibus, lamelloso-striatis. Mus. n.o Inhabits the southern seas. Péron and Le Sueur. It is singularly wrinkled above, and its wrinkles are high, pressed against each other, unequal, contoured, and transversely streaked by small blades. The underside of its expansions is bare, with fine streaks towards the edges; but these expansions go around and often fold back so that their upper surface is the only one visible. The stars do not appear. (My note: the stars here refer to the polyps/mouths)
An image of an underwater colony of Pachyseris rugosa, the elephant skin coral. There is a large nail put through a tag onto some bare rock between the coral labelled "45". The colony itself is composed of many column-like projections that come up to a peak. The texture of the coral's ridges/septa is very unique and undulating, seemingly following no pattern, almost resembling the crest and ridges of skin, or in this case, elephants skin. It's very mesmerizing to following the lines. IC: Dr. Allison Lewis (collaborator)
An image of a long hair cat with its underside mostly white and grey on top with zigzagging coloration between. He is staring at the image tacker (off screen) with his green eyes open. He is sitting on a grey blanket.
A top-down image of a very crowded reef in Palau. There are lots of smaller colonies of branching corals of various shapes, sizes, and genera-species (notably, some Pocillopora, Seriatopora, Acropora, likely others). There are also some green grass-like sprouts here and there of kelp, but not much. The focal point of this image are a large number of disc-shaped Fungiids in multiple aggregations. They are all uniform in shape and size however, but do differ greatly in color. Some are light brown, dark brown, orange-ish brown, and there is one very unique one that is green. Some of them have pretty purple splotches on them as well. It is diffuclt to tell for certain as there's a branching coral on top of it, but there may also be a dark red one. There are a couple small (1-2 inch) long bright blue fish around in the image as well.
A three part figure of the disc, Fungiid corals aggreggating together. Image caption below, but first image descriptions: Panel "a" shows a large number of these fungiids aggregating together of different shapes and sizes. Panel "b" shows more of these, including labels "i" and "ii" that correspond to fungiids that have elongated forms derived from sexual reproduction, and another amorphous "star" shape one (it's called star shaped in the caption, but its difficult to tell here). Panel "c" shows more of the fungiids, including more of the "i" elongated one and another "ii" but this one looks very star-like with each point a different size, with roughly 5-6-ish different points, it's difficult to tell exactly because of shading. Image caption: Fig 1 a Polyphyllia novaehiberniae aggregation in NewCaledonia (scale bar 10 cm) representing a wide range ofgrowth forms; b Elongated form derived from sexual reproduction (i) and star-shaped form (ii) (scale bar 10 cm); c Round corals originating from regenerated fragments (i) and fused individuals regenerated from an empty stalk (ii) (scale bar 5 cm)
Image of a Palauan Reef taken by Collaborator Dr. Shelby Gantt. Lots of various reds, browns, and yellows in the corals. There is a Fungiid coral that has positioned itself on the ledge of a Montipora, possibly not far off from falling off of it. You can only mostly see the underside of it. Yes, these Fungiids have the ability to move. Not fast! But they certainly do move. Some have been noted to form large aggregations, possibly for reproduction.
Image of Looe Reef, full of staghorn hard corals, Acropora palmata. They are relatively large colonies extending out into the distance of the reef. Very orange, very healthy.
Image of a journal article published in Hydrobiologia, "Demographic aspects of the soft coral Sinularia [my note: now Sclerophytum] flexibilis leading to local dominance on coral reefs" by C. Bastidas, K. E. Fabricius, and B. L. Willis. Key words: GBR (Great Barrier Reef), population dynamics, Sinularia, soft corals. Published in 2004.
Ad for Disney and National Geographic's "A Real Bug's Life 2 narrated by awkwafina, available on Disney+ January 15th." The promotional ad has multiple leaves, each with a arthropod on them (Cicada, various beetles/insects I am not familiar with, a jumping spider, and a stag beetle)... and then there's one leaf with a snail.
Image of a saltwater tank. There are multiple leafy, purple (near the tips, then more grey) colonies of S. brassica. There is one plate, likely from the pet store, that has some pretty, purple Xeniids. Most of the rest of the shot is living rocks, possibly with encrusting red algae growing on them, though that's VERY outside my own wheelhouse.
Meme image in the format of the "Dawn of the Final Day" from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but instead saying "Dawn of the Final Stretch; 50 Days Remain Until Dissertation Defense"
The car salesman meme where a salesman in a suit is trying to sell a car to another man looking contemplatively with his hand on his chin. There are three different electron microscopy images of different dinoflagellates where the car normally is. It is captioned "micro-eukaryote salesman: *slaps armor of dino* you can fit so much dna in it".
Image the same cat in the quote image sitting under a lighted rainbow christmas tree, looking rather concerned.
Image of a cat sitting in a patio chair, staring forward at the camera. The cat is a larger cat (it's dense muscle, he was an outside cat prior to adoption) He is mostly brownish-black with a white chest that extends up to between his green eyes. He looks watchful, but not scared.
Meme zoomed in on the only hexacoral/hard coral on the image posted originally with an aged filter on it. A cartoon cowboy hat has been added on top and there are two needles representing nematocysts to either side. It is caption in typewriter bold red font "The Lone Hexacoral" in green smaller typewriter font, "This reef aint cool enough fot most of em :(". The Lone Hexacoral is surrounded by some gorgonians of different species.
Picture of a bird on carpet in the airport looking left.
An image of a book in a rack titled "Playground" by Richard Powers. The cover features the underside of some ray and then a deep red sea fan in the bottom right and some other marine rubble in the bottom left. There's also a misplaced book description beneath for another book called The Ministry of Time.
Image of a generated Metal logo saying "NECROAPPETENS" in white, dripping/jagged text common in Metal logos on a blue-ish/blackish background. There is watermark saying "made with Placeit".
Cephea cephea, the Cauliflower/Crowned jellyfish. It is very purple in the bell and radiating out into the arms, but the terminal ends, which host the brown symbionts, are brown. On top-center it has projections radiating out like a "crown", which has an unknown function! IC: Derek Keats
Image of Palauan coral reed dominated by soft corals Sarcophytidae, which visually resemble Sarcophytons but my genetic analyses place them in a cryptic group outside. There's a Lemnaliid in the foreground and several hard corals dot the area, mostly encrusting. In the top right is a bouldering Millepora, a "fire coral" that's actually a hydrozoan. IC: Todd LaJeunesse, taken while sampling soft corals for me
A horde of Anthopleura hosting chlorella (neon green) surrounding the one dinoflagellate holdout (brownish-grown). Image taken by me.
Image of a white and grey long hair cat sitting on my desk, facing away from the camera and instead looking at my monitor. Ears are flared and concerned.
Image of an email from a company called Flex saying "Reminder: Rent is due, don't be late this month". Don't worry, I hit unsubscribe this time.
Transmission electron micrograph image of microvilli, almost carpet-like projects that just constantly line the cells to boost surface-area for nutrient absorption. IC: Louisa Howard, Katherine Connollly
Image of more crinoids on some Melithaea ( I think), on a reef shelf sloped down. There are three feather stars clusters together on one branch. Perhaps the optimal branch, as it is the one sticking out the most. IC: Phillip Colla
Image of a Melithaea from the Great Barrier Reef, taken by my collaborator at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, Dr. Katharina E. Fabricius. The seafan is a dark reddish-brown. A crinoid (feather-star) is perched on one branch of the organism, splayed out. Some branching hard corals in the background.
Pete, a mostly white, with grey patches and streaks, long hair cat sitting by a door, eyes closed, but mouth open, begging to be let outside.
Screenshot from Sci.news, In red: "Top Headlines:"; in black: "World's Largest Worm Lizard Lived 47 Million Years Ago"
From Lapraz et al. 2013. Multipart figure of a tiger flatworm showing its overall striped, reddish-brown coloration, and zoomed in on its oral and aboral sides pointing out features like eye-spots and its mouth. Original Figure Caption: Habitus of adult Maritigrella crozieri . (A) Side view of a specimen gliding on the wall of a glass tank with undulating motions of the margins, illustrating the dorsoventral flatness. (B) Largest specimen found so far, about 56 mm in length in quiet position. Inset at top left is another specimen after about 4 months of starvation, with a measured length of 5.6 mm, one-tenth that of the large specimen. Note the darker colour of the starved specimen. (C) Dorsal view of the anterior part, with elongated tentacles and two merging patches of cerebral eyes (ey). (D) Ventral view of the anterior part with immersed tentacular eyes (ey). (E) Ventral view with mouth opening (mo) below a slitlike fold, the male genital opening (mg), the female genital opening (fg) and the sucker (su). Parts (C) through (E) show the same specimen. Open Access: https://evodevojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2041-9139-4-29
Light micrograph images of three acoel worms, each with a different set of symbionts. The first is with Tetraselmis, a green algae with smaller cells. The second is also with Tetraselmis, but specific pigmented cells make it more difficult to differentiate as they are a little bit larger and more elongated, and appear red and brown. The final is with more circular, brown cells, that are Symbiodiniaceae. Image Caption Below: Figure 2 Representative light micrographs of live meiofaunal marine acoels. (A-C) Dorsal view of live acoels. Individuals are oriented with the anterior end pointed to the right. (A) Acoel harboring Tetra-selmis symbionts (T) with ocelli (Oc) on both sides of the statocyst (St), pigmentation near the mouth (M), a paired bursal nozzle (Bn), developing oocytes (O), cilia (C), and two types of rhabdoid gland cells: sagittocysts (Sag), and translucent pigmented rhabdoid cells (Rh). (B) Acoel harboring Tetraselmis symbionts (T) with ocelli (Oc) on both sides of the statocyst (St), cilia (C), and numerous red orange rhabdoid gland cells (Rh) distributed throughout the parenchyma. (C) Acoel harboring Symbiodiniaceae symbionts (S), with a statocyst (St), cilia (C), but no ocelli or colored rhabdoid gland cells. Scale bars: 100 um.
Image of a foliose Montipora, sort of curls in on side into concentric circles, almost like if took some sheets of paper and curled one end more closer than the other. Very thin plates, we've been able to break off samples by hand. IC: Ryan McMinds & Joe Pollock
Image from Mangan 1909, very old microscopy image showing a Millepora egg with symbiont cells inside.
Figure from Tom Shlesinger & Yossie Loya 2019. Beautiful images of Millepora dichotoma, a branching fire coral, spawning, with some close-ups on the colonies and polyps, and microscopic images of their medusa. Image caption posted below: Fire corals mass medusae release. (a) Millepora dichotoma overview and (b and c) close up. (d) M. platyphylla. (e) Medusae cover the surface of an M. exaesa colony (on the left) a few minutes before being released against a clean surface (on the right) of M. dichotoma. (f) Microscopic image of M. dichotoma medusae.
Close up on the fire coral from the previous image with its more table-like morphology extending out horizontally, with several independent columnar sort of branches extending up from the "table" or plate.
Image of a sloped coral reef shelf covered in lots of Cnidarians. Notable are several Millepora (fire coral) colonies (more closely related to the Port. man o' war), Pocillpora, some Lemnaliids and Dendronephtheids, Acropora, and lots of pretty orange fish hanging out around the pretty reef. In the background are whiter colonies, though I am uncertain if that is the effect of lighting or if they are actually bleached.
Image of a clownfish in a bubble-tip anemone. In the left-side of the image are two different hard corals that I guess are Porites and Lobophyllia, but they are also out of frame and as usual, I don't trust my hard coral IDs as well.