PRFB FY 2021: Disentangling a Genetic Paradox: Leveraging European Green Crabs to Examine Genomic and Plastic Contributions to Thermal Tolerance

该行动资助了2022财年的NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，即调查基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。欧洲绿色蟹（Carcinus maenas）是世界上最成功的海洋入侵物种之一，部分原因是它们能够在一系列温度下茁壮成长。在北美西海岸，入侵的绿色螃蟹通过与本地螃蟹竞争、捕食幼贝和破坏育苗鳗草床，对商业贝类生产和部落食物主权重要的物种产生负面影响。为了准确地预测和防止进一步的传播和损害，重要的是要了解帮助该物种耐受温度变化的因素。这项工作将揭示遗传和环境因素如何影响个体螃蟹的温度耐受性。该研究员将通过为大波士顿地区资源不足的学校开发有关遗传学和海洋入侵的课程，扩大以前的正义，多样性，公平和包容性工作。西海岸角maenas种群的特点是遗传多样性大大低于其原生分布区。最近发现的一个超基因（一起遗传的基因块）具有与耐热性强烈相关的氨基酸改变突变，这表明了C。在种群水平上的耐热性。虽然群体水平的差异在热性能是重要的，他们可以掩盖个体差异的表型塑料性状，影响耐热性。该研究员将对整个动物的热生理学，转录组学和代谢组学在成年C。maenas解开与驯化可塑性和适应性进化相关的热反应变化。通过利用高通量测序技术（如非靶向转录组学和代谢组学）提供的机制理解，该研究员将阐明温度对分子生理学的影响，这些影响可能不容易单独通过整个生物体响应指标观察到。通过这些方法鉴定的分子重编程将证明个体水平的耐热性如何有助于群体应激反应。这项研究将量化个体的热耐受性变化，并创建一个框架，解剖可塑性适应相互作用的机制基础。该方法可以应用于其他系统，并将扩大研究员的研究广度。该研究员将为来自海洋科学历史上被排斥的群体的本科生提供有偿研究机会，从而培养学生在生态生理学和分子生物学方面的能力，同时也培养研究员成为成功教授所需的指导技能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2022, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. European green crabs (Carcinus maenas) are one of the world’s most successful marine invasive species, due in part to their ability to thrive across a range of temperatures. On the North American West Coast, invasive green crabs negatively impact species important for commercial shellfish production and tribal food sovereignty through competition with native crabs, predation of juvenile shellfish, and destruction of nursery eelgrass beds. In order to accurately predict and prevent further spread and damages, it is important to understand the factors that help this species tolerate temperature changes. This work will uncover how genetic and environmental factors contribute to an individual crab’s temperature tolerance. The fellow will expand on previous justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion work by developing lessons about genetics and marine invasions for under-resourced schools in the Greater Boston area. West Coast C. maenas populations are characterized by substantially lower genetic diversity than in their native range. Recent discovery of a supergene (block of genes inherited together) with amino acid-changing mutations strongly associated with thermal tolerance suggests a genetic basis for C. maenas thermotolerance at a population level. While population-level differences in thermal performance are important, they can obscure the individual variation in phenotypically plastic traits that influences thermotolerance. The fellow will pair whole-animal thermal physiology, transcriptomics, and metabolomics in adult C. maenas to disentangle thermal response variation associated with acclimatory plasticity and adaptive evolution. By leveraging the mechanistic understanding provided by high-throughput sequencing technologies such as untargeted transcriptomics and metabolomics, the fellow will elucidate impacts of temperature on molecular physiology that may not be easily observed by whole-organism response metrics alone. Molecular reprogramming identified by these methods will demonstrate how individual-level thermotolerance contributes to population stress responses. This research will quantify individual thermal tolerance variation and create a framework for dissecting the mechanistic underpinnings of plasticity-adaptation interactions. The methods can be applied to other systems, and will expand the fellow’s research breadth. The fellow will providing paid research opportunities for undergraduate students from historically excluded groups in ocean sciences, thus training students in ecophysiology and molecular biology while also developing mentorship skills necessary for the fellow to be a successful professor.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.