KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 17, 2021 \u2013 Marine life in urban estuaries like Narragansett Bay face a complex variety of stressors that affect various life stages as they grow. To better understand how combinations of these stressors may affect the development and population structure of eastern oysters, the National Science Foundation has awarded a $680,000 grant to 溏心vlog免费B站 biologist Jonathan Puritz, who will conduct a series of laboratory experiments and field studies in estuaries along the East Coast.<\/p>\n
Puritz will focus primarily on how hypoxia, coastal acidification and low salinity levels affect larval and juvenile oysters, while also examining the role these stressors play in shaping the evolution of oyster populations.<\/p>\n
\u201cOysters are incredibly important from a community ecology standpoint,\u201d said Puritz, 溏心vlog免费B站 assistant professor of biological sciences. \u201cThey form reefs that support dozens of other species, they provide ecosystem services like improving water quality, and they support a large aquaculture industry in the U.S. If they\u2019re not having successful reproduction due to these stressors, then efforts to restore natural oyster reefs may only be putting a Band-Aid on the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of the stressors Puritz will be studying are linked to human populations. Low salinity levels in estuaries are associated with large quantities of freshwater that runs off a human-modified landscape following storms. Coastal acidification is driven by climate change and nutrient discharges into waterways. Excess nutrients also increase hypoxia and subsequent microbial and community metabolism and respiration, which drives up carbon dioxide levels and lowers dissolved oxygen levels in the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs larvae grow and develop, they may be able to tolerate short-term exposures to environmental stressors, but prolonged exposure may reduce subsequent survival, especially in juveniles,\u201d Puritz said. \u201cLarval and early-juvenile interactions with multiple stressors have the potential to disrupt gene flow or act as a selective force, structuring populations through genotype-environment interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 溏心vlog免费B站 professor\u2019s research has two phases. In the experimental phase, he will expose oyster larvae to different combinations of the three stressors in a laboratory to examine changes in their growth, mortality and respiration. He will also look for specific genes in the oyster genome that shift in response to the stressors.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we\u2019ll be able to find different variants in these genes that might lead to some sort of resistance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the field component of the study, Puritz will sample adult oysters in Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay to look for correlations between the environmental conditions and the genes identified in the laboratory studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the larvae and juveniles are not going to like the stressors, especially in combination. There\u2019s no doubt about it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve found evidence in other studies that there are parts of the genome that respond to stressors at the larval stage. What we haven\u2019t done yet is connect the larval and juvenile studies to the adults.\u201d<\/p>\n
Puritz said it makes sense that the life history stages are connected, but he doesn\u2019t know how much the early stages are linked to adult populations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the knowledge gap we\u2019re trying to close,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Once he closes that knowledge gap, Puritz will host a community workshop for oyster farmers, conservationists, fisheries managers and others to share what he has learned and teach them how to use his online database of geo-referenced genetic information so they can apply it to their own work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are only a few suppliers of oyster seed to most farmers, so if we can find out about the different genetic variants in different localities, we can help these breeders integrate some of that variation into their domestic lines, which could then be sold to smaller aquaculturists,\u201d said Puritz.<\/p>\n
In addition, he will host a technical workshop for early-career researchers on how to use the genetic techniques he is developing in this study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 17, 2021 \u2013 Marine life in urban estuaries like Narragansett Bay face a complex variety of stressors that affect various life stages as they grow. To better understand how combinations of these stressors may affect the development and population structure of eastern oysters, the National Science Foundation has awarded a $680,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-76221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-the-environment-and-life-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76221","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=76221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}