The roles of plasticity and adaptation in response to environmental change across temporal scales in fishes
department or school: Science, Faculty of
department or school: Zoology, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Earhart, Madison
issued: 2024-01-08T22:33:32Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: How organisms respond to environmental change is a fundamental question in biology, critical to our understanding of how animals will cope with climate change. Determining the climate change resilience of a species or population is a challenging task, as resilience can be influenced by phenotypic plasticity and genetic variation. Specifically in aquatic habitats, organisms encounter rapid environmental changes including variations in temperature, oxygen availability, and salinity which occur across different spatial and temporal scales. My thesis aimed to explore how plasticity and adaptation influence resilience to environmental change across these scales in three different fish species. The three species I studied were Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus), white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus), and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). I measured whole-animal physiology and underlying molecular mechanisms to assess responses to climate change stressors across developmental stages and populations. In killifish and white sturgeon, I found that exposure to climate change stressors during development had lasting phenotypic effects and affected the plasticity of many traits. These studies underlined the importance of considering developmental stage when evaluating stressor effects, as individuals must persist despite environmental changes during sensitive life stages to survive. Also, in white sturgeon and killifish I demonstrated the impacts of simultaneous stressors on whole-animal performance and the underlying genetic mechanisms highlighting the detrimental impact of compounding stressors. To investigate the role genetic variation plays on the ability of fishes to cope with environmental change I assessed how adaptation to different environments can affect the stress response or survival in novel environments. I found that local adaptation can influence the magnitude and plasticity of the stress-axis in killifish, highlighting the potential for adaptive tra…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/87159
note: The roles of plasticity and adaptation in response to environmental change across temporal scales in fishes by Madison Earhart BSc, Mississippi State University, 2015 MSc, The University of Manitoba, 2018 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Zoology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2023 © Madison Earhart, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: The roles of plasticity and adaptation in response to environmental change across temporal scales in fishes submitted by Madison Earhart in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy_________________________________________________ in Zoology___________________________________________________________________- Examining Committee: Patricia M Schulte, Professor, Zoology, UBC Co-supervisor Daniel W Baker, Professor, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Vancouver Island University Co-supervisor Kayla King, Professor, Zoology and Microbiology & Immunology, UBC_________ University Examiner Scott Hinch, Professor, Forestry, UBC____________ University Examiner Katie E Marshall, Assistant professor, Zoology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member, UBC Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Colin J Brauner, Professor, Zoology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member, UBC iii Abstract How organisms respond to environmental change is a fundamental question in biology, critical to our understanding of how animals will cope with climate change. Determining the climate change resilience of a species or population is a challenging task, as resilience can be influenced by phenotypic plasticity and genetic variation. Specifically in aquatic habitats, organisms encounter rapid environmental changes including variations in temperature, oxygen availability, and sa…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0438575
language: eng
degree discipline: Zoology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Schulte, Patricia M.
contributor: Baker, Daniel W
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87159