KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 14, 2017 \u2013 The newest professor in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of the Environment and Life Sciences, Hollie Putnam, thinks some corals and shellfish might have good enough \u201cmemories\u201d to buffer the changes in ocean chemistry that are resulting from global climate change.<\/p>\n
A native of Minnesota who earned a doctorate at the University of Hawaii, Putnam is studying how a wide variety of marine organisms are responding to changes in their environment. Focusing on reef-building corals and other shelled creatures that are threatened by increasing temperatures and ocean acidification, she is testing them to determine how species may acclimatize to the new circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m interested in how the environment is changing, how animals respond to those changes, and the potential for acclimatization to those conditions, particularly across generations and in different life stages,\u201d said Putnam, assistant professor in the 溏心vlog免费B站 Department of Biological Sciences, who joined the faculty in January. \u201cI\u2019m asking questions like, do offspring perform better because of their parents\u2019 history in certain conditions, and if so, what are the mechanisms driving that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In one study of corals, for instance, she exposed adults to increased temperature and acidification, then exposed their offspring to the same conditions to see if they are more successful because of their parents\u2019 previous experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterestingly, we found that there is potential for beneficial acclimatization because of parental history,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is a more positive metabolic response and ecological response, greater survivorship and growth if their parents have been preconditioned to future scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is doing similar experiments with geoduck clams, the largest burrowing clam in the world, which are found primarily on the West Coast. She is exposing them to increased acidification levels, returning them to ambient conditions, and then re-exposing them to higher acidification conditions to see if they have a \u201cmemory\u201d of those conditions and are less sensitive to it.<\/p>\n
To understand the underlying mechanism for how this may occur, she is also conducting epigenetic studies to determine where in the genome this acclimatization effect takes place.<\/p>\n
Putnam grew up hunting, fishing and camping in northern Minnesota, and she said she was always on a path to become a biologist. She didn\u2019t consider studying coral reef systems, however, until learning about them as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. Her first job after graduating was at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she assessed the effects of chemicals on amphibians.<\/p>\n
She said her position at 溏心vlog免费B站 is \u201ca perfect match\u201d because of the University\u2019s reputation for marine science and the presence of other faculty who also study coral reefs and shellfish.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019re just a short jump away to the Caribbean, where some of my research will take place,\u201d Putnam added.<\/p>\n
The new professor is in the process of setting up her laboratory and developing the courses she will teach next fall, including marine biology and marine environmental physiology.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to have a hands-on component in the classes I teach and focus on critical thinking,\u201d said Putnam, who lives in Kingston. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to learn facts in a classroom \u2013 you can develop book knowledge that way \u2013 but it\u2019s more difficult to apply that knowledge until you\u2019re in direct contact with situations that make that linkage for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes to eventually develop an undergraduate course in coral reef studies that will include travel to one of her field sites in the Caribbean. And she said some of her graduate students will conduct studies with her at the Moorea Coral Reef Long-term Ecological Research site in French Polynesia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 14, 2017 \u2013 The newest professor in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of the Environment and Life Sciences, Hollie Putnam, thinks some corals and shellfish might have good enough \u201cmemories\u201d to buffer the changes in ocean chemistry that are resulting from global climate change. A native of Minnesota who earned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}