PRFB FY 2021: Disentangling a Genetic Paradox: Leveraging European Green Crabs to Examine Genomic and Plastic Contributions to Thermal Tolerance

PRFB 2021 财年：解开遗传悖论：利用欧洲绿蟹检查基因组和塑料对耐热性的贡献

• 批准号: 2209018
• 负责人: Yaamini Venkataraman
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Venkataraman, Yaamini Ranjani
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2209018&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PRFB; FY; 2021; Disentangling; Genetic

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2022, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. European green crabs (Carcinus maenas) are one of the world’s most successful marine invasive species, due in part to their ability to thrive across a range of temperatures. On the North American West Coast, invasive green crabs negatively impact species important for commercial shellfish production and tribal food sovereignty through competition with native crabs, predation of juvenile shellfish, and destruction of nursery eelgrass beds. In order to accurately predict and prevent further spread and damages, it is important to understand the factors that help this species tolerate temperature changes. This work will uncover how genetic and environmental factors contribute to an individual crab’s temperature tolerance. The fellow will expand on previous justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion work by developing lessons about genetics and marine invasions for under-resourced schools in the Greater Boston area. West Coast C. maenas populations are characterized by substantially lower genetic diversity than in their native range. Recent discovery of a supergene (block of genes inherited together) with amino acid-changing mutations strongly associated with thermal tolerance suggests a genetic basis for C. maenas thermotolerance at a population level. While population-level differences in thermal performance are important, they can obscure the individual variation in phenotypically plastic traits that influences thermotolerance. The fellow will pair whole-animal thermal physiology, transcriptomics, and metabolomics in adult C. maenas to disentangle thermal response variation associated with acclimatory plasticity and adaptive evolution. By leveraging the mechanistic understanding provided by high-throughput sequencing technologies such as untargeted transcriptomics and metabolomics, the fellow will elucidate impacts of temperature on molecular physiology that may not be easily observed by whole-organism response metrics alone. Molecular reprogramming identified by these methods will demonstrate how individual-level thermotolerance contributes to population stress responses. This research will quantify individual thermal tolerance variation and create a framework for dissecting the mechanistic underpinnings of plasticity-adaptation interactions. The methods can be applied to other systems, and will expand the fellow’s research breadth. The fellow will providing paid research opportunities for undergraduate students from historically excluded groups in ocean sciences, thus training students in ecophysiology and molecular biology while also developing mentorship skills necessary for the fellow to be a successful professor.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.

该行动为2022财年的生物学生物学研究金提供了一项NSF博士后研究奖学金，该研究研究了研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生活规则。奖学金支持对研究员的研究和培训，这将有助于生活创新方式的规则。欧洲绿蟹（Carcinus Maenas）是世界上最成功的海洋入侵物种之一，部分原因是它们能够在各种温度下繁衍生息。在北美西海岸，侵入性绿蟹通过与本地螃蟹的竞争，对少年贝类的预测以及托儿所鳗草床的破坏，对商业贝类生产和部落食品主权的物种产生负面影响。为了准确预测并防止进一步的扩散和损害，了解有助于该物种耐受温度变化的因素很重要。这项工作将发现遗传和环境因素如何促进单个螃蟹的温度耐受性。该研究员将通过开发有关大波士顿地区资源不足学校的遗传学和海洋入侵的课程，扩大以前的正义，多样性，公平和包容性工作。西海岸C. maenas种群的特征是遗传多样性大大低于其本地范围。最近发现具有与热耐受性密切相关的氨基酸变异突变的超基因（共同遗传在一起的基因块）表明，在人群水平上，C. maenas耐热性的遗传基础。尽管热性能的人口级差异很重要，但它们可以掩盖影响热耐耐受性的表型塑性性状的个体变化。该研究员将在成年C. maenas中将全动物的热生理，转录组学和代谢组学与与适应性可塑性和适应性进化相关的热反应变化。通过利用高通量测序技术提供的机械理解，例如未靶向的转录组学和代谢组学，该研究员将阐明温度对分子生理学的影响，而单独的全体生物反应指标可能不太容易观察到温度对分子生理的影响。这些方法鉴定出的分子重编程将证明个体水平的耐热性如何有助于种群压力反应。这项研究将量化单个的热耐度变化，并创建一个框架，以解剖塑性适应相互作用的机械基础。这些方法可以应用于其他系统，并将扩大同伴的研究广度。该研究员将为来自历史悠久的海洋科学群体的本科生提供有偿研究机会，从而培训学生的生态生理学和分子生物学，同时还发展了该研究员成为成功教授所必需的心态技能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的知识优点和广泛的范围来评估，认为NSF的法定任务是宝贵的。