| NSF Org: |
OPP Office of Polar Programs (OPP) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | May 6, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | May 6, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1543245 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Maria Vernet
OPP Office of Polar Programs (OPP) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | July 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $790,442.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $790,442.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
75 LOWER COLLEGE RD RM 103 KINGSTON RI US 02881-1974 (401)874-2635 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
Kingston RI US 02881-1967 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | ANT Organisms & Ecosystems |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.078 |
ABSTRACT
The research will examine how diatoms (an important group of plankton in the Southern Ocean) adapt to environmental change. Diatoms will be sampled from different regions of the Southern Ocean, including the Drake Passage, the Pacific Sector of the Southern Ocean and the Ross Sea and examined to determine the range of genetic variation among diatoms in these regions. Experiments on a range of diatoms will be conducted in home laboratories and will be aimed at measuring shifts in physiological capacities over many generations in response to directional changes in the environment (temperature and pH). The information on the genetic diversity of field populations combined with information on potential rates of adaptability and genome changes will provide insight into ways in which polar marine diatoms populations may respond to environmental changes that may occur in surface oceans in the future or may have occurred during past climate conditions. Such information allows better modeling of biogeochemical cycles in the ocean as well as improves our abilities to interpret records of past ocean conditions. The project will support a doctoral student and a postdoctoral researcher as well as several undergraduate students. These scientists will learn the fundamentals of experimental evolution, a skill set that is being sought in the fields of biology and oceanography. The project also includes a collaboration with the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting that will design and facilitate a session focused on current research related to evolution and climate change to be held at the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).
Both physiological and genetic variation are key parameters for understanding evolutionary processes in phytoplankton but they are essentially unknown for Southern Ocean diatoms. The extent to which these two factors determine plasticity and adaptability in field populations and the interaction between them will influence how and whether cold-adapted diatoms can respond to changing environments. This project includes a combination of field work to identify genetic diversity within diatoms using molecular approaches and experiments in the lab to assess the range of physiological variation in contemporary populations of diatoms and evolution experiments in the lab to assess how the combination of genetic diversity and physiological variation influence the evolutionary potential of diatoms under a changing environment. This research will uncover general relationships between physiological variation, genetic diversity, and evolutionary potential that may apply across microbial taxa and geographical regions, substantially improving efforts to predict shifts in marine ecosystems. Results from this study can be integrated into developing models that incorporate evolution to predict ecosystem changes under future climate change scenarios.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Phytoplankton are the microscopic floating plants that form the base of a highly productive food web in the Southern Ocean. They support large populations of krill, whales and many seabirds that are icons of Antarctic habitats. Almost nothing is known about how Southern Ocean phytoplankton will respond to the rapidly increasing sea surface temperatures that have been observed recently. Will cold-adapted Southern Ocean phytoplankton die or do they have the capacity to adjust their metabolism to warmer temperatures? Or do cold-adapted phytoplankton need to evolve new ways to deal with warmer temperatures? Are they able to evolve fast enough? In order to keep up with the pace of environmental change in their habitat, cold-adapted phytoplankton may need to undergo rapid evolutionary change. This project attempts to measure how much genetic and metabolic variation currently exists within Southern Ocean phytoplankton and how that influences their evolutionary potential. The response of phytoplankton to ocean warming has the potential to further influence the rest of the food web, either supporting or starving important Antarctic animals. We found that key Southern Ocean phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, called diatoms, have the ability to withstand far warmer temperatures than they regularly encounter in their habitat. This result indicates that their metabolic flexibility may act as a buffer against the effects of ocean warming. We also found that they may be able to survive increasingly frequent ocean heat waves, using the same metabolic flexibility. Finally, we looked at diatoms along a 5,000 km transect of the Southern Ocean and found that they all have a very similar genetic background. This means that the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean are well mixed and that evolutionary change in one part of the Southern Ocean will likely expand across the rest of this important ocean. Again, this characteristic may buffer these cold-adapted organisms, at least to some degree, against warmer surface temperatures in the Southern Ocean.
Last Modified: 08/18/2022
Modified by: Tatiana Rynearson
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