Ocean Acidification Category 1 Collaborative Research: RUI: Synergistic Effects of Temperature and pH Variability on Physiology, Transcriptome and Proteome of Porcelain Crabs

California Polytechnic State University Foundation, San Luis Obispo CA

Investigators

Abstract

Marine environments are becoming more acidic as a result of increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide; this gas dissolves in sea water and is driving a process known as ocean acidification. However, organisms that live on the ocean floor (e.g. crabs, sea stars and oysters) experience, as a result of their biological activity, daily variations in their pH (acidity) that are greater than those caused by the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This project addresses the comparative effects on porcelain crabs of increased ocean acidity (which changes slowly over years) with the daily variation in pH that these animals experience. The impacts of simultaneous changes in pH and temperature will be assessed, and it will be determined if early life history stages (i.e., crab larvae) are more sensitive to ocean acidification than adults. The responses that will be measured include calcification of the shell, metabolism, altered expression of genes and the modification of proteins. This research is expected to produce new and ecologically important information, across multiple levels of biological organization, about the impacts of ocean acidification on a coastal marine organism. Broader Impacts: This research will provide interdisciplinary training for graduate and undergraduate students in biochemistry, genomics, physiology and ecology. Students who are members of groups underrepresented in science will be recruited through programs at the San Francisco State University Student Enrichment Opportunity office, and through collaboration between Cal Poly and Hancock University. The investigators will incorporate this research in their undergraduate physiology classes, which emphasize active learning. A workshop on proteomics for researchers interested in ecological physiology will be conducted at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The investigators will present public lectures on ocean acidification and climate change, and write articles on these topics in the popular press. Teacher training workshops designed to enhance secondary education in climate change biology will be conducted at the Romberg Tiburon Center and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.