Responses of Fish to a Changing Environment

加拿大是无数鱼类的家园，具有重要的商业、娱乐和文化价值。人类活动，如栖息地的改变和气候变化，已经在威胁着这一重要资源，而且这些影响在未来只会加剧。舒尔特博士的研究项目的目标是了解使物种或物种中的个体对环境变化脆弱或有弹性的机制。这项工作提供了制定适当的保护和缓解战略所需的科学知识，这些战略将有助于在未来保护加拿大的鱼类资源。Schulte博士的研究项目是高度整合的，从基因组学、表观基因组学、生物化学和生理学的基础机制研究开始，并利用这些信息来了解在面对环境变化时影响鱼类性能和适应性变化的因素。这种创新的综合方法使她的研究小组能够深入了解鱼类对环境变化的恢复力的表型可塑性和适应性变化的机制。她的研究分为三个相互关联的主题。她的第一个研究主题是研究表型可塑性的表观遗传机制，或生物体在不改变其基因型的情况下改变其表型的能力。表型可塑性可以作为对环境变化的缓冲，但它也有局限性。舒尔特博士使用一系列尖端方法来确定促进这种可塑性的表观遗传机制，并确定其局限性。舒尔特博士研究的第二个主题是了解个体或物种之间的遗传差异如何影响对环境变化的适应能力差异。她使用全基因组测序技术来识别整个基因组中鱼类内部和物种之间的遗传变异，然后将这种变异与对环境变化的耐受性变异联系起来。在她的第三个研究主题中，Schulte博士从前两个主题的基础研究中获得了知识，并将其应用于实际和以解决方案为导向的框架中，以提高保护孵化场的有效性，以支持野生鱼类种群，提高水产养殖作业的效率、可持续性和复原力，并减少对野生鱼类的压力。

Canada is home to myriad fish species that have important commercial, recreational, and cultural value. Human activities such as habitat alteration and climate change are already threatening this important resource, and these effects are only going to intensify into the future. The objective of Dr. Schulte's research program is to understand the mechanisms that make species, or individuals within a species, vulnerable or resilient to environmental change. This work provides the scientific knowledge needed to develop appropriate conservation and mitigation strategies that will help preserve Canada's fish resources into the future. Dr. Schulte's research program is highly integrative, starting from fundamental mechanistic studies in genomics, epigenomics, biochemistry and physiology and using this information to understand the factors that influence variation in the performance and fitness of fish in the face of environmental change. This innovative integrative approach allows her research group to gain insight into mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity and adaptive variation in resilience to environmental change in fish. Her research is divided across three inter-related themes. Her first research theme examines the epigenetic mechanisms that underlie phenotypic plasticity, or the ability of an organism to alter its phenotype without changing its genotype. Phenotypic plasticity can act as a buffer against environmental change, but it also has limits. Dr. Schulte uses a range of cutting-edge approaches to identify the epigenetic mechanisms that facilitate this plasticity, and identifies their limits. The second main theme of Dr. Schulte's research is to understand how genetic differences among individuals or species contribute to differences in resilience to environmental change. She uses whole-genome sequencing technologies to identify genetic variation within and between fish species across the entire genome, and then makes the links between this variation and variation in tolerance of environmental change.In her third research theme, Dr. Schulte takes the knowledge gained from the fundamental research performed in the first two themes and applies it in a practical and solutions-oriented framework to improve the effectiveness of conservation hatcheries to support wild fish populations and to increase the efficiency, sustainability, and resilience of aquaculture operations and reduce pressures on wild fish.