CAREER: Maternal age effects in an ecologically-important aquatic invertebrate: Genetic and epigenetic controls and fitness outcomes in variable environments

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A mother’s environment or physical condition can affect her offspring’s health and lifespan, a phenomenon known as a “maternal effect.” Maternal age effects, in which advanced maternal age causes decreased offspring lifespan and reproduction, are common among diverse species, including humans. Thus, maternal age effects have important implications for everything from determining an individual’s disease risk and aging rate to determining population growth rates and community structure. This research aims to identify the molecular mechanisms by which information about a mother’s age is transmitted to her developing offspring, and how that leads to changes in offspring health. Additionally, this project will explore how maternal age effects change population growth rates and structure in different environments. The results may reveal the importance of maternal age in determining a population’s fitness in stable versus changing environments and could inform the search for therapies to improve health during aging and to extend reproductive longevity. This project will benefit society by broadening participation in research by under-represented groups at many educational levels. The goal of the project’s education plan is to increase diversity of those involved in biology research and to promote public understanding of the research process by integrating the research program with hands-on educational and research opportunities for undergraduates and underserved high school and community college students. The researchers hypothesize that maternal age effects are mediated by epigenetic changes in histone post-translational modifications that alter chromatin structure, causing gene expression changes that impact cellular function in offspring. Using the rotifer Brachionus manjavacas as a study system, this project will (1) characterize the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms driving maternal age effects using comparative RNA-Seq, ATAC-Seq, mass spectrometry, and RNAi; and (2) quantify the impact of maternal age effects on offspring adaptation and fitness in variable environments using life table and population growth assays. Results will advance the understanding of the role of transgenerational inheritance in structuring populations and provide insights to how maternal age effects on fitness change depending on environmental context. Research aims will be integrated with the project’s education objectives, to (1) create a research internship program for community college students, to provide research opportunities for non-traditional students and increase diversity in STEM; (2) develop education modules for high school students in the Marine Biological Laboratory’s secondary education initiative, to expose students to the research process, aquatic ecology, and evolutionary biology; and (3) create courses for undergraduates, to provide interdisciplinary ecological and molecular biology research training.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.