University at Buffalo (UB)
Research by Scott Santos reveals the effects of climate change
Halocaridina rubra, or tiny red shrimp, are about the size of your pinky fingernail and are endemic to Hawaii.
UB Research News published an article about Dr. Scott Santos, Maui native and Biological Sciences Empire Innovation Professor. Santos has been studying Halocaridina rubra for nearly two decades. He believes the tiny shrimp provide a window into how ocean life is changing due to climate change. At UB, the Santos Lab utilizes a variety of molecular tools, computational approaches and field- and laboratory-based studies to examine the ecology, evolution, genetics, physiology and symbiosis biology of a range of terrestrial and aquatic — both freshwater and marine — organisms, including host- and environmentally associated microbiomes. Santos earned his PhD here in 2002, and joined our faculty two years ago. Read the article by Meredith Forrest Kulwicki.
research news
Hawaiian shrimp provide window into climate change
Maui native and UB researcher Scott Santos has been studying Halocaridina rubra, or tiny red shrimp, for nearly two decades.
Photos and text by MEREDITH FORREST KULWICKI
Published October 10, 2023
Halocaridina rubra, or tiny red shrimp, are about the size of your pinky fingernail and are endemic to Hawaii.
Maui native and UB researcher Scott Santos has been studying these tiny animals for nearly two decades and believes they provide a window into how ocean life is changing due to climate change.
“One of the things that we have gotten funding to do is to look at how the animals adapt to new habitats,” says Santos, Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences. “Hawaii is a very dynamic system. You get environments or areas that are created, and you can also get them destroyed.”
Santos notes that when the Kilauea Volcano erupted in 2018, new lava covered long stretches of the shoreline on the Big Island of Hawaii.
“While that destroyed some of the original habitats, it created new ones,” he explains. “The newly created habitats were literally sterile. Now the animals, the bacteria and everything are coming in and we are looking at what’s exactly happening as this process goes on, from days to months to years to decades.”
Childhood inspiration
Santos says that if he had to pinpoint what inspired him to be a scientist, “it was back when I was a kid, just exploring the ocean with my family.”
He says his family used to hunt and fish, which exposed him from a young age to the wide variety of organisms — both native and introduced — that are found on the islands.
His family has been in Hawaii for three generations — his great-great grandparents came from Puerto Rico and Portugal to work in agriculture on the islands. As a child, he often explored the landscape and says finding shrimp was never a challenge.
Santos says that if he had to pinpoint what inspired him to be a scientist, “it was back when I was a kid, just exploring the ocean with my family.”
On a trip home in June 1999 while he was a graduate student at UB, Santos collected about half a dozen ʻōpaeʻula — the Hawaiian name for the shrimp — in a sealed bottle. As his academic work continued, he found himself increasingly interested in them: how they lived, how they behaved, their genetics and their physiology.
Reflecting on the times he spent on the Hawaiian shores as a child, Santos decided to focus more of his research on these relatively unknown creatures.
“As a researcher, I felt the ʻōpaeʻula presented an interesting system,” Santos recalls. “It was as simple as, ‘Let’s collect some samples and see what happens.’ And then that just building into now and I’ve got this really novel and interesting data.”
His lab now houses nearly a dozen tanks of shrimp collected from approximately 40 sites around the Hawaiian Islands. Through his work over the past two decades, Santos has become a recognized leader in this field of research. He has been featured in Science Nation, received funding from the National Science Foundation, published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and had his work featured in multiple scientific journals.
Scott Santos has marked maps of Hawai'i with the locations where he has collected shrimp.
The Santos Lab
Santos rejoined the UB community — he earned his PhD from the university in 2002 — about two years ago after spending 17 years on the faculty at Auburn University. He has built his lab to integrate a variety of research interests.
Santos and his students examine the ecology, evolution, genetics, physiology and symbiosis biology of a range of terrestrial and aquatic — both freshwater and marine — organisms.
Work in The Santos Lab utilizes a variety of molecular tools, computational approaches and field- and laboratory-based studies to examine the ecology, evolution, genetics, physiology and symbiosis biology of a range of terrestrial and aquatic — both freshwater and marine — organisms, including host- and environmentally associated microbiomes. Currently his students are researching clams — yes, clams — in Western New York forests; shrimp living in the Caribbean in similar habitats to those from Santos’ research; and the microbial populations in the Hawaiian shrimps’ habitats.
“Working in the Santos Lab is like being part of a close-knit family,” says master’s student Nick James. “It’s a collaborative environment where we tackle intriguing research questions together, which has been invaluable for my learning journey.”
“The important part is that people have similar large-scale interests,” Santos adds. “Having a team with such diverse research projects has been fun because they all think similarly but are not overlapping in their specific work. It makes for a very dynamic environment.”
Faculty Profile
Scott R. Santos, Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, died April 9. He was 52. Dr. Santos was an accomplished researcher, faculty member and an administrator. He was most proud of helping the next generation of scientists to be successful. Those that knew Scott best, say his work ethic was unmatched and that his students adored him. A pioneer in his field, an exceptional scholar, a cherished colleague and mentor — Professor Santos' positive influence on the scientific community and on those fortunate enough to know him will be long-lasting and sorely missed.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to Scott’s family, his wife Vicky, his daughter River, and to his colleagues and friends.
An obituary and information about services can be found here.
More memories and sentiments can be viewed on the Lombardo Funeral Home tribute wall.
![Scott R. Santos.]()
Scott R. Santos
PhD
Research Interests
Microbial symbioses, microbial community structure and function, evolutionary biology, biodiversity and conservation, marine and freshwater ecology, bioinformatics.
Education
- BS with Distinction, Zoology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1996
- PhD, Biological Sciences, University at Buffalo, 2002
- Postdoctoral Researcher, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, University of Arizona, 2004
Research Summary
Research in The Santos Lab utilizes a variety of molecular tools, computational approaches and field- and laboratory-based studies to examine the ecology, evolution, genetics, physiology, and symbiosis biology of a range of terrestrial and aquatic (both freshwater and marine) organisms, including host- and environmentally-associated microbiomes.
Microbiomes, representing the collective bacteria, archaea, protist, fungi and virus community living on or in individual organisms or in particular environments, are now recognized as having significant impacts on the development, health, and disease status of hosts or in ecosystem function. Since understanding phenomena like the mechanistic basis between individuals’ genotypes and phenotypes or nutrient cycling and energy flow through environments requires consideration at multiple levels of biological complexity, this should include interactions with, and the organization of, microbiomes.
Selected Publications
- See complete list (2000 - current) on Google Scholar.
- Carpenter, A., W.B. Bryant, S.R. Santos, R.J. Clem. (2021) Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with midgut-attenuated Sindbis virus exhibit reduced disseminated infection. Journal of Virology. 95:e00136-21.
- Glass, J.R., S.R. Santos, J.S.K. Kauwe, B.D. Pickett, T.J. Near. (2021) Phylogeography of two marine predators, giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis) and bluefin trevally (Caranx melampygus), across the Indo-Pacific. Bulletin of Marine Science. 97:257-280. (Featured Article).
- Santana-Pereira, A., M. Sandoval-Powers, S. Monsma, J. Zhou, S.R. Santos, D. Mead, M. Liles. (2020) Discovery of novel biosynthetic gene cluster diversity from a soil metagenomic library. Frontiers in Microbiology. 11:585398.
- Hoffman, S.K., K.W. Seitz, J.C. Havird, D.A. Weese, S.R. Santos. (2020) Invited SICB Symposium Contribution: Phenotypic comparability from genotypic variability among physically structured microbial consortia. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 60:288-303.
- Weaver, R.J., B.K. Gonzalez; S.R. Santos, J.C. Havird. (2020) Red coloration in an anchialine shrimp: molecular mechanisms, genetic variation, and candidate genes. The Biological Bulletin. 238:119-130. (Featured Cover Article).
- Havird, J.C., E. Meyer, Y. Fujita, R.C. Vaught, R.P. Henry, S.R. Santos. (2019) Disparate responses to salinity across species and organizational levels in anchialine shrimps. Journal of Experimental Biology. 222:jeb211920.
- LaJeunesse, T.C., J.E. Parkinson, P.W. Gabrielson, J.H. Jeong, J.D. Reimer, C.R. Voolstra, S.R. Santos. (2018) Systematic revision of the Symbiodiniaceae highlights the antiquity and diversity of coral endosymbionts. Current Biology. 28:2570-2580. Recommendation on F1000Prime.
- Santos, S.R., M.A. Coffroth. (2018) Protist Citation Classics: Revisiting "Genetic Diversity of Symbiotic Dinoflagellates in the Genus Symbiodinium". Protist. 169:784-787.
- Thornhill, D.J., E.J. Howells, D.C. Wham, T.D. Steury, S.R. Santos. (2017) Invited Reviews and Syntheses: Population genetics of reef coral endosymbionts (Symbiodinium, Dinophyceae). Molecular Ecology. 26:2640-2659.
- Havird, J.C., S.R. Santos. (2016) Invited SICB Symposium Contribution: Developmental transcriptomics of the Hawaiian anchialine shrimp Halocaridina rubra Holthuis, 1963 (Crustacea: Atyidae). Integrative and Comparative Biology. 56:1170-1182. (Featured Cover Article).
- Santos, S.R. (2016) Chapter 23: From one to many: the population genetics of cnidarian-Symbiodinium symbioses. Book chapter in Springer volume "The Cnidaria, past, present and future. The world of Medusa and her sisters" Eds. Goffredo, S. & Dubinsky, Z. pg. 359-373.
- Havird, J.C., R.C. Vaught, D.A. Weese, S.R. Santos. (2015) Reproduction and development in Halocaridina rubra Holthuis, 1963 (Crustacea: Atyidae) clarifies larval ecology in the Hawaiian anchialine ecosystem. The Biological Bulletin. 229:134-142.
- Vaught, R.C., J.C. Havird, S.R. Santos. (2014) Genetic lineage and environmental conditions as drivers of chromatosome variation in the anchialine shrimp Halocaridina rubra Holthuis 1963 (Atyidae:Decapoda). Journal of Crustacean Biology. 34:647-657.
- Havird, J.C., S.R. Santos, R.P. Henry. (2014) Osmoregulation in the Hawaiian anchialine shrimp Halocaridina rubra (Crustacea: Atyidae): expression of ion transporters, mitochondria-rich cell proliferation, and hemolymph osmolality during salinity transfers. Journal of Experimental Biology. 217:2309-2320.
- Thornhill, D.J., Y. Xiang, D.T. Pettay, M. Zhong, S.R. Santos. (2013) Population genetic data of a model symbiotic cnidarian system reveal remarkable symbiotic specificity and vectored introductions across ocean basins. Molecular Ecology 22:4499-4515. (Featured Perspectives Article).
- Weese, D.A., Y. Fujita, S.R. Santos. (2013) Multiple colonizations lead to cryptic biodiversity in an island ecosystem: comparative phylogeography of anchialine shrimp species in the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. The Biological Bulletin 225:24-41. (Featured Cover Article) Editor's Pick Sept. 2013.
- Santos, S.R., D.A. Weese. (2011) Invited Contribution: Rocks and Clocks: Linking geologic history and rates of genetic differentiation in anchialine organisms. Hydrobiologia. 677:54-63.
