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

研究启动奖为传统黑人学院和大学的初级和中期职业教师提供支持，他们正在建立新的研究项目或重新指导和重建现有的研究项目。期望该奖项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。该奖项授予汉普顿大学在许多领域具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首席研究员和本科学者-研究人员将在这个迅速兴起的领域产生重大影响，这将是海洋科学界广泛感兴趣的领域。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的增加对海洋鱼类视觉和听觉系统的形式和功能的影响，二氧化碳浓度的增加是下个世纪预测变化的代表。将研究急性和慢性水二氧化碳暴露对视觉和听觉感觉结构形态学发展的影响，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期间改变潜在感觉缺陷的能力，研究对象是来自不同系统发育、地理区域和生活史的鱼类。虽然由此产生的行为变化已被记录在案，但鱼类神经感觉系统的生理功能由于海洋酸化而改变的程度，以及它可能引起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.