Genetic and environmental correlates of physiology and gene expression for the eastern oyster in the southeastern United States


SOCIETY FOR INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY
2021 VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING (VAM)
January 3 – Febuary 28, 2021

Meeting Abstract


S2-8  Mon Jan 4 16:00 – 16:30  Genetic and environmental correlates of physiology and gene expression for the eastern oyster in the southeastern United States Furr, D; Ketchum, RN; Leach, WB; Ivanina, AV; Reitzel, AM*; University of North Carolina, Charlotte; University of North Carolina, Charlotte; University of North Carolina, Charlotte; University of North Carolina, Charlotte; University of North Carolina, Charlotte areitze2@uncc.edu https://sites.google.com/site/thereitzellab/home

Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) have long been utilized as informative coastal organisms to determine mechanisms for acclimating and adapting to extreme environmental variation. These oysters are resilient to extensive abiotic (temperature, salinity, oxygen) and biotic (microbial and viral pathogens) variation, which can vary for oysters from different habitats and geographic locations. C. virginica is native to the southeastern United States and is routinely aquacultured, but little comparative data are available describing physiological and genetic variation for oysters in this geographic region. We will present the results from two sets of experiments aimed at understanding this variation. First, we compared genetic diversity and gene expression for oysters from four locations in North Carolina and Virginia to compare the innate immunity response to a pathogen (Vibrio) under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Second, we used transcriptome-wide gene expression and physiological responses for intertidal and subtidal oysters from two locations in North Carolina to compare the influence of habitat and location on these phenotypes. Together, our results are important for understanding genetic variation and physiological plasticity in stress response for this commercially important oyster species.

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