Collaborative Research: Response of marine copepods to warming temperature and ocean acidification

随着时间的推移，我们的海洋变得越来越暖，溶解的二氧化碳也越来越高。后一种情况称为海洋酸化。这些同步变化对海洋生物种群的影响还不是很清楚。在这个项目中，研究人员将进行一系列实验室实验，以确定两个密切相关、常见的阿卡梯桡足类物种将如何应对气候变暖和酸化的交互影响，以及这些物种在多个世代中如何适应不断变化的海洋条件。由于这些桡足类是沿海食物网中的关键物种，研究结果将对理解和预测海洋生态系统如何应对未来的气候变化具有重要意义。研究人员将通过传统的印刷媒体、案例研究和视频迷你讲座分享研究结果。目标将是使各级教育工作者能够容易地获取关于气候变化和海洋酸化的材料，以便根据普遍的学习设计建议纳入教学课程。该项目是康涅狄格大学一名资深教授和佛蒙特州大学一名职业生涯早期的女科学家共同努力的成果。该项目将为两名博士后研究人员、两名研究生和一名本科生提供合作和跨学科研究的机会。该项目的主要目标是：1)测试当前和未来条件下温度和二氧化碳对两个关键的桡足类物种生活史特征的同时影响，这两个物种是温暖适应的Acartia tonsa和寒冷适应的Acartia hudsonica；2)测试这两个桡足类物种对温暖和二氧化碳含量丰富的海洋的适应能力；3)在未来的条件下，测量两个桡足类物种在多个世代的实验选择中由遗传和母体引起的变化，并确定响应选择的基因和途径。研究人员将使用包含当前和预测的温度和二氧化碳条件的实验，来确定每个变量的作用以及它们对影响两个桡足类物种适合度的特征的交互作用。他们还将决定哪些生命阶段对个别或同时的压力条件最敏感。通过多代选择实验，研究人员将识别和表征桡足类进化适应的机制。最后，他们将测量所有四种实验条件下世代的基因组变化，以量化在不久的将来气候条件下，遗传和母体诱导的桡足类生理和生活史特征变化的相对贡献。

Over time, our oceans are becoming both warmer and higher dissolved carbon dioxide. The latter condition is called ocean acidification. The consequences of these simultaneous changes for populations of marine organisms are not well understood. For this project, the investigators will conduct a series of laboratory experiments to determine how two closely-related, common species of Acartia copepods will respond to the interactive effects of warming and acidification and also how well these species can adapt over multiple generations to changing ocean conditions. Since these copepods are key species in coastal food webs, results will have important implications for understanding and predicting how marine ecosystems may respond to future climate change. The investigators will share results from the research through traditional print media, case studies, and video mini lectures. The goal will be for educators of all levels to easily access material on climate change and ocean acidification to include in teaching curricula, in alignment with recommendations for universal design for learning. The project is a collaborative effort between an established professor at the University of Connecticut and an early-career female scientist at the University of Vermont. It will provide training and opportunities for collaborative, interdisciplinary research for two postdoctoral investigators, two graduate students and an undergraduate student.The project's main goals are: 1) to test the simultaneous effects of temperature and carbon dioxide under current and future conditions on life history traits throughout the life cycle for two key copepod species, warm-adapted Acartia tonsa and cold-adapted Acartia hudsonica; 2) to test for adaptive capacity of both copepod species to a warmer and carbon-dioxide-enriched ocean; 3) to measure the genetic and maternally-induced changes across multiple generations of experimental selection in future conditions in both copepod species, and to identify the genes and pathways responding to selection. The investigators will use experiments encompassing current and projected temperature and carbon-dioxide conditions, will determine the roles of each variable and their interaction on traits that affect the fitness of both copepod species. They will also determine which life stages are most sensitive to individual or simultaneous stress conditions. Through multigenerational selection experiments, the investigators will identify and characterize the mechanisms of copepod evolutionary adaptation. Finally, they will measure genomic changes across the generations under all four experimental conditions to quantify the relative contributions of genetic and maternally-induced change in the physiological and life history traits of copepods in response to near-future climate conditions.