Chris Reyes wins the first Lara Vincent Research Assistance Award
Congratulations to Chris Reyes (BUMP ’19) for winning the Lara Vincent Research Assistance Award!
Carbon dioxide emissions, responsible for keeping the Earth warm, have increased considerably since the 1700s and are negatively affecting organisms all over the world. These emissions are not only causing global ocean temperatures to rise, but also resulting in reductions in seawater pH, termed ocean acidification (OA). We conducted a controlled 16-day laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of pH stress on the common slipper shell snail Crepidula fornicata, an abundant and resilient species native to Eastern North America. We aimed to determine how the physiology and gene expression of these snails is affected by OA and how these responses differ between larvae and juveniles. To assess the effects of OA on the physiology of the snails, we measured shell and tissue growth rates and assessed ability of larva to transition to juvenile under three different pH treatments (7.5, 7.6, 8.0). I am currently analyzing gene expression results in order to profile genome-wide gene expression and correlate it with the physiological data across treatments and life stages. I hope to show how transcriptomic plasticity, the ability for genes to express differently as a function of the environment, can allow highly resilient organisms like C. fornicata to acclimate to drastically altered environmental conditions in the face of climate change.
Chris will use the award to offset publication costs for an upcoming submission to Frontiers in Marine Science.