Research Initiation Award: Quantifying the effects of ocean acidification on visual and auditory neurobiology in marine fishes

研究启动奖为历史上黑人学院和大学的初级和中级职业教师提供支持，他们正在建立新的研究项目或重新定向和重建现有的研究项目。预计该奖项将有助于进一步提高教师的研究能力和效率，改善其所在机构的研究和教学，并使本科生参与研究经验。授予汉普顿大学的奖项在许多领域都有潜在的更广泛的影响。该项目的目标是调查海洋酸化的可能变化如何影响海洋鱼类的视觉和听觉神经生物学。本科生将获得研究经验。该项目的跨学科方法确保了主要研究者和本科学者-研究人员将在这一迅速发展的领域产生重大影响，这将引起海洋科学界的广泛兴趣。该项目的目标是应用电生理技术和形态分析来分析二氧化碳浓度增加的影响，这是下一个世纪预计变化的代表。海洋鱼类视觉和听觉系统的形式和功能。将研究急性和慢性水性二氧化碳暴露对视觉和听觉感觉结构的形态发育、听觉和视觉系统的功能表现以及γ-氨基丁酸A受体拮抗剂在急性和慢性酸化过程中改变潜在感觉缺陷的能力的影响，所用的鱼类来自不同的生态系统、地理区域和生活史。虽然已经记录了由此产生的行为变化，但海洋酸化在多大程度上改变了鱼类神经感觉系统的生理功能，以及它可能导致的形态变化和功能缺陷，在很大程度上仍然未知。

Research Initiation Awards provide support for junior and mid-career faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are building new research programs or redirecting and rebuilding existing research programs. It is expected that the award helps to further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, improves research and teaching at his home institution, and involves undergraduate students in research experiences. The award to Hampton University has potential broader impact in a number of areas. The goal of the project is to investigate how possible changes in ocean acidification may affect visual and auditory neurobiology in marine fishes. Undergraduate students will gain research experiences. The project's interdisciplinary approach ensures that the principal investigator and the undergraduate scholar-researchers will make significant impacts in this rapidly emerging field that will be of broad interest to the marine science community.The goal of the project is to apply electrophysiological techniques and morphological analyses to assay the effects of increased carbon dioxide concentrations that are representative of projected changes over the next century on the form and function of marine fish visual and auditory systems. The effects of both acute and chronic aqueous carbon dioxide exposure will be studied on the morphological development of visual and auditory sensory structures, the functional performance of auditory and visual systems, and the capability of a gamma-aminobutyric acid A receptor antagonist to alter potential sensory deficits during acute and chronic acidification using fishes from diverse phylogenies, geographic regions, and life histories. While resulting behavioral changes have been documented, the extent to which the physiological function of fish neurosensory systems is altered as a consequence of ocean acidification, and the morphological changes and functional deficits it may cause, remains largely unknown.