Exploring mechanisms of plasticity and tolerance in early stage marine invertebrates in response to marine heatwaves

海洋热浪(MHW)--长时间异常温暖的表层海水温度--在美国沿海水域的强度和频率都有所增加。最近发生在美国西海岸的MHW已经导致物种分布的变化，生物多样性的丧失，以及由于有害的藻华而关闭的渔业。随着MHW频率的增加，这些事件将继续影响自然海洋生态系统和来自海洋的重要资源(例如渔业和水产养殖)。该项目的目标是更好地了解MHW将如何影响沿海海洋社区，如海藻森林。缺少的一个关键信息是早期生活史阶段，即分散和维持海洋生物健康种群的阶段，如何应对这些异常高的海洋温度。该项目正在调查两种关键的海洋无脊椎动物的胚胎和幼虫对MHW压力的反应和恢复能力。这两种海洋无脊椎动物是生活在加利福尼亚州沿海海带森林中的红色和紫色海胆。红海胆是一种有价值的渔业(鱼卵作为UNI出售)，来自该项目的数据有助于对这一自然资源的管理。最后，该项目正在培训早期职业研究人员、本科生和研究生，重点是扩大对科学和技术领域的参与。更广泛的影响是为加州大学圣巴巴拉分校未被充分代表的本科生提供研究经验和指导。加州大学圣巴巴拉分校自2015年以来一直是一家服务于拉美裔的机构。该项目直接资助了三名女性博士研究生的博士论文研究。该项目旨在了解MHW事件期间异常高温对海洋生物繁殖和早期发育的影响。在加利福尼亚州的沿海系统中，海带森林生态系统的海洋无脊椎动物在MHW倾向于发生和加剧时繁殖。主要目标是研究母性和父性效应如何影响来自加州沿海温带海带森林群落的两种海胆早期发育阶段的耐热性，后者是一种重要的野生渔业物种，紫海胆和红海胆是一种重要的野生渔业物种。该项目正在解决与气候变化有关的幼虫生态问题，并正在研究表型可塑性如何有助于海洋生物的适应能力。正在对每个物种的一系列性状进行评估：(1)受精动力学，(2)成功的发育进程，(3)耐热性(通过耐热性试验和热应激的生化指标)，以及(4)亲本效应。使用RNA测序的基因表达正在捕捉母体效应的影响，以解决在配子发生期间经历MHW温度的雌性是否通过幼虫转录的变化产生更耐热的后代。该项目由生物海洋学和综合生态生理学计划联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) – prolonged periods of unusually warm surface seawater temperatures - have increased in intensity and frequency in US coastal waters. Recent MHWs on the US West Coast have resulted in changes in species distributions, loss of biodiversity and closed fisheries due to harmful algal blooms. As the frequency of MHWs increase, these events will continue to impact natural marine ecosystems and important resources from the ocean (e.g., fishing and aquaculture). The goal of this project is to better understand how MHWs will affect coastal marine communities like kelp forests. A key missing piece of information is how early life-history stages, the stages that disperse and maintain healthy populations of marine organisms, fare in response to these anomalously high ocean temperatures. This project is investigating the response and resilience to MHW stress in embryos and larvae of two key marine invertebrates, the red and purple sea urchins that inhabit the kelp forests of coastal California. The red urchin is a valuable fishery (the roe is sold as uni) and data from this project is contributing to the management of this natural resource. Lastly, the project is training early career researchers, undergraduate and graduate students with a focus on broadening participation in the fields of science and technology. The broader impacts are providing research experiences and mentoring to under-represented undergraduates at UC Santa Barbara, a Hispanic-Serving Institution since 2015. The project directly supports the PhD dissertation research of three women Ph.D. graduate students from under-represented groups.This project aims to understand the consequences of anomalously high temperatures during MHW events on reproduction and early development of marine organisms. In the coastal California system, marine invertebrates of the kelp forest ecosystem are reproductive when MHWs tend to occur and intensify. The major goal is to examine how maternal and paternal effects, that play out in a MHW context, influence the thermal tolerance of early developmental stages of two sea urchin species from the temperate kelp forest communities of coastal California, the purple (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) and red (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) sea urchins, the latter being an important wild fisheries species. This project is addressing climate-change relevant aspects of larval ecology and is examining how phenotypic plasticity contributes to adaptive capacity of marine organisms. A series of traits are being assessed for each species: (1) fertilization kinetics, (2) successful developmental progression, (3) thermal tolerance (via thermal tolerance trials and biochemical indices of thermal stress), and (4) parental effects. Gene expression using RNA sequencing is capturing the influence of maternal effects to address whether females that experience MHW temperatures in situ during gametogenesis produce progeny with greater thermal tolerance via changes of the larval transcriptome.This project is jointly funded by the Biological Oceanography and Integrative Ecological Physiology Programs.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.