RESEARCH |
Untangling plasticity and adaptation mechanisms
Understanding the legacy of stress and whether organisms can adapt or acclimate is an incredibly important question in our rapidly changing world. My goal is to empirically test the relative importance of plasticity, both within and across generations, among populations and species that vary in key traits and environmental characteristics. Marine invertebrates offer unique opportunities for progress because of their diversity of life history strategies, yet they are currently underrepresented in this growing body of literature. Overall, my approach is to run split brood, fully factorial experiments manipulating parental and offspring environments and measuring the relevant phenotypic responses. I compliment these lab-based experiments with other techniques including field surveys, mathematical modeling, proposing theoretical frameworks, and molecular approaches.
The legacy of anthropogenic stressors within and across generations
Splash pool copepods and thermal stress
Red abalone and ocean acidification
Bryozoans and copper toxicity
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Organisms can adapt through genetic changes that are passed slowly from generation to generation and/or they can acclimate to a stress within a generation using plasticity (within-generational plasticity, WGP). Intermediate between the two responses is transgenerational plasticity (TGP), which occurs when a change in offspring phenotype or reaction norm is cued by an environmental signal in the parent (or previous generations) without involving a genetic change. Genetic adaptation, WGP, and TGP can all act and interact to create phenotypes in response to a given environmental regime. However, while comparisons among disparate studies and modeling approaches provide us with some predictions as to what forms of plasticity should be adaptive and the conditions under which these occur, there are few empirical data testing these predictions.
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Plasticity in predator-prey and herbivore-plant interactions
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Anti-predator and anti-herbivore responses (e.g., behavioral changes, morphological changes, secondary compound production) may be innate/constitutive or they may be plastically induced in response to risk cues. The duration and strength of these responses, within or across generations, may vary across evolutionary and ecological contexts. Additionally, the condition of an individual (current life stage, reproductive status, or energetic demands) may also contribute to the strength of these plastic responses. These observed differences in induced defense have important implications for other traits involved in processes beyond defense (flower color, feeding rates, palatability) that can impact entire ecosystems.
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Fear memory and induced anti-predator responses across populations of intertidal snails
Transgenerational plasticity of anti-herbivore defenses in wild radish
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Applying evolution & ecology to the real world
Optimizing abalone aquaculture and captive breeding
Ecological impacts of Living Shorelines
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Transgenerational plasticity... So what? Beyond advancing our understanding of eco-evolutionary dynamics, I am also interesting in trying to apply these data to real-world challenges. Climate change, coastal development, and other anthropogenic stressors are major concerns. Understanding how different populations cope with a given stressor can offer valuable insight into the abundances and distributions of species in the future. We can also leverage our results to inform stakeholders such as homeowners and aquaculture growers on how best to future-proof and optimize operations.
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