Investigating mechanisms underlying adaptive capacity to ocean warming

了解海洋生物如何应对现在和未来截然不同的环境条件，对于管理和保护海洋生物多样性至关重要。一个复杂的因素是观察到一个特定物种的种群往往是微调，以适应他们生活的环境。然而，人们往往不清楚环境的哪些组成部分造成了人口之间的这些差异。该项目的重点是大西洋牡蛎钻，这是一种捕食性蜗牛，在北美大西洋海岸消耗养殖和野生牡蛎，这里是世界上温度梯度最强的地方之一。研究人员将联合收割机实地和实验室研究相结合，以了解温度的差异如何影响牡蛎钻的生长和生存，这些牡蛎钻来自整个范围的种群。这些信息与分子分析相结合，以帮助确定种群之间的遗传和生理差异。除了有益于牡蛎礁，这些信息还有助于了解海洋生物如何应对快速变化的环境条件。该项目还支持本科生、研究生和博士后的教育和海洋科学培训。在与非营利组织沃特斯特朗的合作中，调查人员将为30名来自历史上代表性不足的群体的女孩提供海洋科学和游泳技能培训。预测海洋群落将如何应对快速的环境变化是困难的，因为物种的反应可能因种群而异，而且生物可能会随着时间的推移而进化。关于这种进化潜力如何产生和维持的知识是有限的。研究物种对环境变化的反应的一个有用的方法是调查物种如何在其分布范围内局部适应环境差异。该项目测试竞争机制，可以产生反梯度变化（CnGV;当地适应的一种普遍形式）在生态上重要的海洋物种（大西洋牡蛎钻，Urosalpinx cinerea）。这项综合研究的目标是：1）量化季节性和平均温度在产生CnGV中的强度，2）使用田间采样和普通花园实验的组合来确定这些反应是否与生物性状相关。这些目标与分子方法相辅相成，3）量化种群中的中性遗传结构，4）确定遗传适应和转录可塑性在促进生理适应环境变化中的作用。拟议的工作是重要的，因为它提供了一个新的测试不同的环境驱动程序的一种常见的地方适应形式。这项研究还揭示了这种局部适应性如何产生的遗传基础，并将深入了解生物体对快速变化的适应能力。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。

Understanding how marine life copes with drastically different environmental conditions now and into the future is essential for the management and conservation of biodiversity in the ocean. One complicating factor is the observation that populations within a given species are often fine-tuned to the environment that they live in. Yet, it is often unclear what components of the environment create these differences across populations. This project focuses on Atlantic oyster drills, a predatory snail that consumes farmed and wild oysters on the Atlantic coast of North America, the location of one of the strongest temperature gradients in the world. The investigators combine field and laboratory studies to understand how differences in temperature affect the growth and survival of oyster drills sourced from populations throughout their range. This information is paired with molecular analyses to help determine genetic and physiological differences among populations. In addition to benefitting oyster reefs, this information broadly contributes to the understanding of how marine life will respond to rapidly changing environmental conditions. The project also supports the education and marine science training of students at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral level. In partnership with the non-profit organization Waterstrong, the investigators will provide marine science and swimming skills training to thirty girls from historically underrepresented groups. Predicting how marine communities will respond to rapid environmental change is difficult because species responses can vary across populations and because organisms may evolve over time. Knowledge of how such evolutionary potential arises and is maintained is limited. A useful approach for examining species response to environmental change is to investigate how species have locally adapted to environmental differences across their range. This project tests competing mechanisms that can generate countergradient variation (CnGV; a widespread form of local adaptation) in an ecologically important marine species (Atlantic oyster drill, Urosalpinx cinerea). The objectives of this integrative research are to 1) quantify the strength of seasonality and mean temperature in generating CnGV and to 2) identify if these responses are correlated across biological traits using a combination of field sampling and common garden experimentation. These objectives are complemented with a molecular approach that 3) quantifies neutral genetic structure across populations and 4) identifies the roles of genetic adaptation and transcriptional plasticity in facilitating physiological adaptation to environmental change. The proposed work is significant because it provides a novel test for different environmental drivers of a commonly observed form of local adaptation. This research also reveals the genetic underpinnings of how such local adaptation arises and will give insight into the adaptive capacity of organisms to rapid change.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.