CAREER: Mechanisms and costs of temperature adaptation along a latitudinal cline for the coastal copepod, Acartia tonsa

University Of Vermont & State Agricultural College, Burlington VT

Investigators

Abstract

Organisms that live in environments that vary across space or time may have greater capacity to acclimate or adapt to rapid changes in environmental conditions. However, little is known about the mechanisms or capacities for rapid adaptation among populations or the extent of costs associated with rapid evolution. This project will characterize the mechanisms and costs of natural and experimental temperature adaptation using multiple populations along the broad latitudinal distribution of the foundational coastal copepod, Acartia tonsa. This work will also greatly advance our general understanding of variation in capacity to adapt for many other ecologically and economically critical species. To carry out this work, the principal investigator will lead 100 undergraduates, over the five-year period, through an integrative teaching-research asset-based training program that connects a colloquium, summer research internship, and research course. In addition, two PhD students, one postdoctoral scientist, and one research technician will develop diverse skillsets in asset-based mentoring, genetics, genomics, evolution, computational and marine biology, and how to be a member of an inclusive, supportive STEM community. In addition to improving the well-being of participants and growing a more diverse STEM workforce, results from the research will benefit society by improving the ability to predict species persistence in future conditions and improving understanding of the scope of the threat of changing global conditions on ocean ecosystems. Populations respond to environmental conditions that vary across space and time through genetic adaptation or physiologically plasticity, however, a comprehensive understanding of how these mechanisms vary across populations or contribute to future resilience is lacking. In addition, temperature adaptation is a complex physiological trait, thus rapid temperature adaptation could take multiple paths depending on the genomic background of a population and could yield unintended costs. In the project, the principal investigator will lead students in work to test the hypotheses that variation in genomic backgrounds affects capacity to adapt and that rapid adaptation to one stressor comes with costs to survive other stressors. The project will capitalize on the broad latitudinal distribution and experimental tractability of the ecologically foundational coastal copepod, Acartia tonsa. The researchers will 1) Link genotype to temperature adaptive phenotype using ecological genomics and genome-wide association studies in populations along the environmental gradient of the U.S. East Coast, 2) Reveal the transcriptional bases of differences in thermal tolerance among populations and life-history stages, 3) Characterize variation in temperature adaptation trajectories in multiple experimentally evolved populations and measure the costs of adaptation. Integration of results across these aims will lead to insights to the molecular bases of complex traits, the repeatability of evolutionary trajectories in lab- and field-based studies, and the relationship between plastic and genetic response mechanisms in temperature adaptation. Lastly, this work will be performed through the development of an integrated teaching-research training program that will increase diversity and inclusion in a STEM research community. This grant was cofunded by the Integrative Ecological Physiology Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems in the Directorate for Biological Science, The Biological Oceanography Program in the Division of Ocean Sciences in the Directorate for Geosciences, and The EPSCoR Program in the Office of Integrative Activities. 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.