Thesis (doctoral)--Jāmiʻat al-Qāhirah, Cairo, 1981. / Abstract in English. Title on added t.p.: The ports of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea coast. Includes bibliographical references (p. 595-607).

Thesis (doctoral)--Jāmiʻat al-Qāhirah, Cairo, 1981. / Abstract in English. Title on added t.p.: The ports of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea coast. Bibliography: p. 595-607.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2006. / Vita. Appendix: leaves 295-329. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 330-348).

The deep-sea hypersaline lakes in the Red Sea are among the most challenging, extreme, and unusual environments on the planet Earth. Despite their harshness to life, they are inhabited by diverse and novel members of prokaryotes. Methanogenesis was proposed as one of the main metabolic pathways that drive microbial colonization in similar habitats. However, not much is known about the identities of the methane-producing microbes in the Red Sea, let alone the way in which they could adapt to such poly extreme environments. Combining a range of microbial community assessment, cultivation and omics (genomics, transcriptomics, and single amplified genomics) approaches, this dissertation seeks to fill these gaps in our knowledge by studying archaeal composition, particularly methanogens, their genomic capacities and transcriptomic characteristics in order to elucidate their diversity, function, and adaptation to the deep-sea brines of the Red Sea. Although typical methanogens are not abundant in the samples collected from brine pool habitats of the Red Sea, the pilot cultivation experiment has revealed novel halophilic methanogenic species of the domain Archaea. Their physiological traits as well as their genomic and transcriptomic features unveil an interesting genetic and functional adaptive capacity that allows them to thrive in the unique deep-sea hypersaline environments in the Red Sea.

Atmospheric aerosols have been studied in great depth in regards to its metrological and chemical characterizations. Covering about 33% of the planet, the Global Dust Belt is the major source of wind-blown dust. Airborne aerosols play important roles in the Earth systems, impacting the marine and terrestrial ecosystems, human and organismal health. Aerosolized dust can carry a diverse range of microorganisms that may be transported across large distances. If surviving the transport, influence, as vectors supporting microbial populations or as pathogens to other organisms, the recipient ecosystems where they may be delivered through dry and wet depositions. Located in the middle of the global dust belt area, the Red Sea receives about 1.2 Mt of emitted dust particles per storm and a total of 6 Mt dust deposition from the annual 5-6 storm events, which may contain important loads of microorganisms. This dissertation characterizes the taxonomical compositions of airborne prokaryotes and micro-eukaryotes and their transport history in the dust-associated microbiome, and the functional profile of the airborne microorganisms. The samples required to achieve these goals were collected with a high-volume dust collector over the Red Sea from the coastal and offshore regions over two years. In addition, microbial communities sampled from the surface Red Sea water were used to establish the possible relationship, suggesting an exchange, between the airborne microbial communities and those in the Red Sea. Since relying on culture5 based analyses would take no notice of unculturable microorganism, culture-independent techniques were followed to detect the vast majority of the biological particles on the sampled air filters. However, large volumes of air should be collected due to the difficulty of acquiring enough genomic materials from the low density of airborne microorganisms for molecular assays. Sahara Deserts and deserts in the Arabian Peninsula represented the major sources of microbial inputs to the Red Sea atmosphere. Hence, a high number of allergens, plant and mammalian pathogens, human and animal parasites have been detected in airborne dust samples, which could be of concern. Functionally, dust-associated microbiome has exclusive lifestyle’s features that facilitate a resilient strategy to survive during airborne transportation, so-called “aeolian lifestyle.”

While geographic distance is a variable often used to explain population genetic differentiation, dynamic processes leading to stochastic population structure are more likely driving factors. The following thesis presents the population structure of a common reef sponge, Stylissa carteri, and yields hypotheses on the influence of environmental heterogeneity as a predictor of the observed population structure. This project represents the largest population genetics study thus conducted in the Red Sea and also includes the first population genetics data gathered for sites off the coast of Sudan and Soccotra. The study herein presented includes both a large scale (36 reef sites covering over 1000km of coastline) and small-scale (16 transects of 50m each) analysis of gene flow in a benthic dwelling organism. The variable effect of geography and environmental conditions on S. carteri population structure is assessed using a seascape genetics approach. Environmental factors from a nine-year dataset accessed from the NASA Giovanni website including chlorophyll a, sea surface temperature, dissolved and particulate organic matter for both the annual and winter temporal scale were considered.

As a region renowned for high biodiversity, endemism and extreme temperature and salinity levels, the Red Sea is of high ecological interest. Despite this, there is relatively little literature on basic broad scale characteristics of the biodiversity or overall reef fish communities and how they change across latitude. We conducted visual transects recording the abundance of over 200 species of fish from 45 reefs spanning over 1000 km of Saudi Arabian coastline and used hierarchical cluster analysis to find that for combined depths from 0m-10m across this geographical range, the reef fish communities are relatively similar. However we find some interesting patterns both at the community level across depth and latitude as well as in endemic community distributions. We find that the communities, much like the environmental factors, shift gradually along latitude but do not show distinct clusters within the range we surveyed (from Al-Wajh in the north to the Farasan Banks in the south). Numbers of endemic species tend to be higher in the Thuwal region and further south. This type of baseline data on reef fish distribution and possible factors that may influence their ranges in the Red Sea are critical for future scientific studies as well as effective monitoring and in the face of the persistent anthropogenic influences such as coastal development, overfishing and climate change.

Aeolian dust exerts a notable influence on atmospheric and oceanic conditions and human health, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions like Saudi Arabia. Dust is often characterized by its mineral and chemical composition, but there is a microbiological component of natural aerosols which has received comparatively little attention. Moreover, the amount of materials suspended in the atmosphere is highly variable from day to day. Thus, knowing the loads of dust and suspended microbes and its variability over the year is essential to understand the possible effects of dust on the Red Sea ecosystem. Here, we present the first estimates of dust and microbial loads at a coastal side on the Red Sea over a two-year period supplemented with information from dust samples collected along the Red Sea in offshore water and their variability. Weekly average dust loads ranged from 4.63 to 646.11 μg m-3, while the abundance of airborne prokaryotic cells and viral particles ranged from 31,457 to 608,333 cells m-3 and from 69,615.5 to 3,104,758 particles m-3, respectively. These are the first estimates of airborne microbial abundance that we are aware of in this region. The large number of dust particles and suspended microbes found in the air indicates that airborne microbes may have a large impact on our health and that of the Red Sea ecosystem.

The Red Sea is one of the warmest, saltiest, and most oligotrophic seas in the world that supports a healthy and extremely diverse coral reef ecosystem. Increasing development along the Saudi Arabian coast may increase eutrophication due to impacts of human population and also oil pollution from increased shipping traffic and refinery activity. The risk of oil pollution combined with increased eutrophication due to coastal development provides a clear stressor interaction which is vastly understudied. Individually, these stressors are known to negatively impact coral reproduction, recruitment, and growth. This study focuses on reef settlement and recovery following experimentally-simulated disturbance scenarios. Carbonate recruitment tiles were placed on the reef and exposed to four treatments: control, nutrient enrichment with slow-release fertilizer, tiles soaked in crude oil, and a combination treatment of nutrient enrichment and oil-coated tiles. At periods of 3, 6, 9, 14, and 17 weeks, tiles were collected to classify the settled community and measure oxygen production. Oil, nitrate, and phosphate were the biggest determining factors predicting settlement and oxygen production of the different treatments. The oil treatment had the least overall settlement and oxygen production, whereas the nutrient treatment had the most turf algal recruitment and oxygen production. The combination treatment had an antagonistic effect on algal growth: the nutrients facilitated growth on the otherwise toxic oiled tiles.

The relationship between clownfish and sea anemones is a beloved and iconic example of marine symbiosis. However, ecological information in the eastern Red Sea about the endemic Red Sea clownfish, Amphiprion bicinctus, and its host sea anemones remains relatively incomplete. For example, previous studies report that A. bicinctus forms mutualistic relationships with three to five host anemone species in the Red Sea. But the reported number and combination of host anemone species varies substantially among sources and little is known about host anemone distributions at different scales on the eastern coastline. To better understand the ecology of A. bicinctus and its host sea anemones, we conducted 70 surveys in three regions of Saudi Arabia and one region in Djibouti. We then analyzed distribution patterns for all anemone species observed in these regions, to attain deeper knowledge of anemone habitat usage and relative abundance. We recorded six host sea anemone species associated with A. bicinctus in the Red Sea, one of which represents a new case of symbiosis, and we identified differences in species composition and abundance across different reef scales. We noted patterns of decreasing anemone diversity with increasing latitude, beginning at 20° N, and greater overall anemone abundance in the central Red Sea. We also used field and laboratory observations to examine anemonefish abundance, survival, and fecundity on different species of anemones at different life history stages. In sum, this thesis collectively identifies eastern Red Sea anemone hosts for A. bicinctus, evaluates their regional and fine-scale distributions, and assesses how different anemone species impact their anemonefish occupants on different levels.