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Clint Oakley

@clintoak.bsky.social
916 followers 673 following 28 posts

Marine microbial ecologist, integrative biologist and Principal Investigator specializing in coral reef biology. 🇳🇿

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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
The upcoming El Niño event will be somewhere between 'very bad' and 'catastrophic' for coral reefs. www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-...
theaustralian.com.au
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Fascin' Pit
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Universities use a simplistic kludge of an overheads model where overheads/F&A are charged only on the salary portion of a grant at a >100% rate. The result is that hiring people, especially early-career researchers, is extremely difficult, because that has to bear the entire overhead burden.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
And even that scheme has just been cut by ~30%. The entire national basic science research budget is now about $32m USD.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
There are many features of the US system that I wish the NZ system would/could emulate: program officers for support (we have none); receiving scores on proposals; the sheer number of funding schemes (NZ has 1 for basic science, with a 10% success rate and 1 round per year, max award ~550kUSD).
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The legal term is "turkey pardon"
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
www.wgtn.ac.nz/scholarships...
wgtn.ac.nz
Marsden PhD Scholarship in Coral Reef Biology | Scholarships | Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
These scholarships fully fund the three-year PhD program. To apply, send the following to Prof. Simon Davy simon.davy@vuw.ac.nz: - Cover letter - CV - Copies of academic transcripts - Writing sample (e.g. Publication, MSc thesis chapter) - Names of two academic referees (inc. a thesis supervisor)
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
PhD Scholarship! 📯 Two PhD scholarships are available to study symbiont loss in coral bleaching. Students will contribute to a three-year project funded by @royalsocietynz.bsky.social . Students will be supervised by @davylab.bsky.social and @clintoak.bsky.social at VUW. #PhDOpportunity #coralreef
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/29/w...
newsroom.co.nz
Winner of top science prize blames ‘batshit’ Budget for brain drain
Dr Samuel Mehr says the Government values science, but their ‘idiotic’ approach to funding it will cost them their brightest.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
I saw some of these corals in person, and I'm angry that my kids won't. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #coralreefs #climatechange
science.org
Heat-driven functional extinction of Caribbean Acropora corals from Florida’s Coral Reef
In 2023, a record-setting marine heat wave triggered the ninth mass coral bleaching event on Florida’s Coral Reef (FCR). We examined spatial patterns of heat exposure along the ~560-kilometer length o...
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
We show that anemones absorb #lipid nanoparticles directly from seawater, stimulating their #metabolism. Details, and potential applications for #coral reef restoration and aquaculture, in our new preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #science #marinebiology #symbiosis #proteomics
Lipid nanoparticles are absorbed by the anemone Exaiptasia diaphana and stimulate lipid metabolism, including beta-oxidation and the TCA cycle.
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Reposted by Clint Oakley
ICRS International Coral Reef Society @icrs.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
1/6 Call for session proposals 16th International Coral Reef Symposium, 19–24th July 2026, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Session proposal deadline: Sunday 15th June 2025. Details and submission link at www.icrs2026.nz/call-for-ses...
icrs2026.nz
Call for Session Proposals
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
My suspicion is that it contributes heavily to its ability to quickly recolonize post-bleaching, and potentially to its infection of a broad diversity of hosts in the Caribbean.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Possibly. We've got a previous paper showing that Durusdinium is better at acquiring nitrogenous compounds from the host, which may be a mechanism of how it escapes host control: enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Sub‐cellular imaging shows reduced photosynthetic carbon and increased nitrogen assimilation by the non‐native endosymbiont Durusdinium trenchii in the model cnidarian Aiptasia
Hosting different symbiont species can affect inter-partner nutritional fluxes within the cnidarian–dinoflagellate symbiosis. Using nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS), we measured t....
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Corals maintain stable populations of essential photosynthetic symbionts by controlling their cell cycle, not by eating them! Our new #PNAS paper monitored and modelled #aiptasia cell cycle, autophagy, and expulsion for over a year. #symbiosis #microbiology www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Cell cycle arrest in the cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
How can new heat-resistant algae help host metabolism and immunity during #coralbleaching? Do they become better partners over time? Our new paper (tinyurl.com/465k5hpx) uses combined #proteomics and #metabolomics to show how they help their hosts, or not, during thermal stress. #microbiology
tinyurl.com
The Influence of Symbiont Identity on the Proteomic and Metabolomic Responses of the Model Cnidarian Aiptasia to Thermal Stress
We examined the effects of symbiont identity and heat stress on the host metabolome and proteome in the cnidarian–dinoflagellate symbiosis. Integrated metabolome and proteome analyses characterised h...
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Quoted in a new article describing the extreme fishing pressure and decline of coral reefs in Vietnam, and local efforts to reverse course: apnews.com/article/viet... @emmafcamp.bsky.social #coralreefs
apnews.com
Coral reefs in Vietnam face collapse. Can conservation efforts turn the tide?
The coral reefs of Nha Trang, Vietnam, are in severe decline due to climate change, overfishing, and pollution.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
This is Moko, an 800-year-old rimu in Ōtari-Wilton's Bush in Wellington. Enormous, covered in epiphytes, and very near the city center!
Moko, an 800 year old rimu tree.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 26/12/2024
Andrea's new paper explores oxylipin receptors in the coral symbiosis and how they may be important for the stability and the functional biology of coral reefs. Congrats Andrea! enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... #symbiosis #coralreefs #cellbiology
Immunocytochemistry fluorescent microscopy image showing the localisation of different oxylipin receptors in the anemone Exaiptasia diaphana.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
The methods and scale of coral reef restoration efforts have advanced immensely in the past few years, some of these tools are amazing. Enjoying learning about the latest global efforts at #ReefFutures !
Reef Futures conference poster session
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
But of course you're familiar with Aiptasia! :)
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Exaiptasia diaphana ('Aiptasia'), a symbiotic anemone and model for the coral-dinoflagellate symbiosis. Great in the lab and you can do lots of good undergrad work with it. aiptasia-resource.org
aiptasia-resource.org
Aiptasia Symbiosis Resource
Supporting a collaborative understanding of the mechanisms behind coral symbiosis
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Hi, yes please, thanks for organizing.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Hi #TeamMassSpec: For those of you on the facility management side of the party, how do you go about finding potential #proteomics clients/customers, either academic or commercial? We're considering new strategies.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Hi, I'd love to be included!
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
Hi Monica, please add me and thanks for setting this up.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
Looks like a good list to be on! Please add me when you have a chance.
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Clint Oakley @clintoak.bsky.social · 03/08/2024
We detailed how dinoflagellate proteomes shift over time during symbiosis establishment, and contrasted physiological and immune pathways in successful and opportunistic symbionts. See our new paper in ISMEJ! academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...
Summary of proteomic changes in Breviolum minutum and Durusdinium trenchii during symbiosis establishment with the anemone Exaiptasia diaphana.
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