Speaker
Description
For a number of years we have been using a coral reef damselfish, Acanthochomis polyacanthus, to investigate the influence of thermal conditions experienced over multiple generations on performance. As the project’s focus was to understand transgenerational effects as a means for marine fish to acclimate and adapt to rapid environmental change, two future projected increases of +1.5°C and +3°C were used. Fish were maintained in these elevated conditions for three generations and during this time phenotypic traits were measured as well as shifts in gene expression patterns. A number of interesting patterns were found with the temperature experienced by the current, parent or grandparent generation affecting the phenotype of fish, with more gradual warming over generations resulting in greater plasticity allowing developmental plasticity occurring on top of transgenerational plasticity. In addition, we also found that the thermal conditions in which reproduction occurred interacted with thermal history to effect the phenotype of offspring produced. Finally, certain traits exhibited rapid plasticity consistently occurring within a generation, while others required the previous generation(s) to have experienced warmer conditions for phenotypic change to arise.
