URI leads $3 million collaborative research project on ‘Rules of
Life’
Pocillopora, one of the coral species to be studied as part
of an NSF-funded collaborative research project being led by the University of
Rhode Island. Photo by Hollie Putnam
The University of Rhode Island is
leading a team that has been awarded a $3 million 5-year collaborative research
grant from the National Science Foundation as part of its investment in 10 Big Ideas to serve the nation’s future.
Funded
through NSF’s Understanding the Rules of Life: Epigenetics program,
researchers will work to better understand how changes in nutrition and energy
through symbiosis can influence epigenetic changes in corals, and what it may
mean for coral ecology.
Epigenetics is the study of changes
in organisms caused by a modification of gene expression –or the way gene
instructions are interpreted– as opposed to modification of the genetic code.
Coral reefs are essential to life on
this planet as they play a critical role in carbon cycling, coastal protection,
biopharmaceuticals, and economics through tourism and fisheries.
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| Hollie Putnam, assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Rhode Island, preparing for coral spawning in Mo’orea French Polynesia. Photo by Hollie Putnam |
“Corals are the canary in the coal
mine when it comes to climate change, and are valued in the order of hundreds
of billions of dollars annually. Better understanding their evolutionary
processes and how they may acclimate through epigenetics may allow us to reduce
the negative effects of events like mass bleaching and the impact the rapid
loss of coral reefs has on our food security, coastal security and how the
oceans impact our coasts,” said research team leader Hollie Putnam, coral
biologist and assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of
Rhode Island.
The project is being led by the
University of Rhode Island’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences, in
collaboration with researchers at the University of Washington, Florida
International University, the University of California Santa Barbara and Shedd
Aquarium in Chicago.
It will be developed in Mo’orea, French Polynesia and will
test how changes in the nutritional state of symbiosis may change epigenetic
patterns to allow corals to acclimate within and across generations.
“Corals are also a nice model to
study because they are symbiotic – as are most organisms and systems on the
planet – so what we learn here will help us to understand all biological
systems better,” added Putnam.
A rapidly developing field,
epigenetics is bringing to light the capacity for genetic materials to generate
many different outcomes when interacting with the environment.
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| Corals on the lagoon reefs of Mo’orea, French Polynesia. Photo by Hollie Putnam |
Studies on the
impact of stress and famine during pregnancy have shown that nutrition and
epigenetics can interact to have significant consequences for many generations.
“Epigenetics constitutes an exciting
frontier to understand how living beings interact with their environment,” said
Jose Eirin-Lopez, molecular biologist and environmental genetics expert and
assistant professor of biological sciences at Florida International University.
“Present in all eukaryotes from simple yeast cells to human beings, epigenetic
modifications ‘sense’ environmental cues that shape how our genome works,
governing fundamental processes that go from our inception to our development,
from aging to health, and from our social interactions to our evolution as a
species.”
Over the next five years, the
research team will conduct experiments on the coral reefs of Mo’orea to develop
and expand new theoretical modeling approaches to piece together the complex
interactions that result in organism function, ecological performance, and
evolution.
The project will add to the ongoing Mo’orea Coral Reef Long Term
Ecological Research project, which has collected 15 years of data on
the structure and function of Mo’orea’s coral reefs at a time when the world’s
coral reefs are facing numerous threats.
“This will provide us amazing
insights into the function of Mo’orea’s coral reefs at a critical time. And
with this detailed understanding, we’ll be better equipped to understand reefs
elsewhere,” stated Holly Moeller, symbiosis and modeling expert and assistant
professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of
California Santa Barbara, referencing the use of this knowledge to build
predictive models for coral reef ecology and evolution.
Theoretical modeling efforts will be
essential to this approach. The group will connect energy metabolism at the
cellular scale to epigenetic, physiological, and ecological factors through the
use of Dynamic Energy Budget models pioneered by team member Roger Nisbet, of
ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of California Santa
Barbara.
“By using this symbiotic system we
can better understand how both the environment and interactions with other
organisms influence these basic Rules of Life,” says Ross Cunning, research
biologist and symbiosis expert at the Shedd Aquarium.
These Rules of Life can then be
translated across systems due to the common nature of symbiosis with living
things. Ultimately, the major pioneering outcome of this work will be
delineating fundamental links between universal organismal energetic processes
and ecological and evolutionary outcomes driven by epigenetics.
The unique research team blends
expertise in cellular biology, molecular biology, physiology, ecology and
mathematics. It will include undergraduate and graduate students from each
university, as well as postdoctoral scholars. They will work within their
institutions and together to integrate their findings.
“This Big Idea research provides a
unique opportunity to train the next generation of scientists in a
quantitative, multidisciplinary fashion,” said Steven Roberts, associate
professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington.