This post details all activities in Moorea in March and April 2022 for the Gametogenesis and Heatwave projects for the study species Acropora pulchra and Pocillopora sp. conduted in Mo’orea, French Polynesia at the Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station.
Overview
A major Aim of the E5 project is to examine the effects of environmental stressors that shift the coral-microbe symbiosis on epigenetics, gene expression, and organismal physiology on carry over across generations, also known as trans-generational epigenetic inheritance, or parental effects.
We are conducting a field trip to Moorea in March and April 2022 with the goal to sample Acropora pulchra and Pocillopora spp. throughout gametogenesis on the northshore backreef and collect data on histology, physiology, and epigenomics. Original tagging and sampling of 40 Acropora pulchra colonies was completed by the Putnam Lab team (Hollie, Ariana, Pierrick, and Alex (CRIOBE)) in December 2021 and of Pocillopora spp. starting in January 2022. Monthly timepoint sampling will be carried out for this project until October 2022 for spawning in collaboration with CRIOBE. We will also be exposing additional Acropora pulchra colonies to an experimental marine heatwave scenario from mid-March till mid-April 2022. The corals exposed to this treatment will be outplanted back to their origin reef site after the experimental period and have six months to recover before being re-sampled in October 2022 for spawning. We will be processing physiological measurements (symbiont densities, chlorophyll content, total protein, surface area, respirometry, and tissue biomass) for collected and preserved samples, measuring bleaching score on in situ and experimental colonies, conduting our marine heatwave exposure, measuring respirometry over the heatwave period for experimental colonies, decalcifying histological samples, and collecting molecular and histological samples during our two month trip.
Team
- Danielle Becker-Polinski (Putnam Lab)
- Lauren Zane (Putnam Lab)
- Alexandre Fellous (Putnam Lab / CRIOBE)
2 March 2022
We arrived early in the morning to Moorea and took the ferry to Gump. Upon arrival, we organized all our personal belongings, lab spaces, and equipment in the molecular and LTER front lab. The 24 tank system has been running fish experiments and we will be setting up temperature control for 12 ambient and 12 heatwave tanks to maximise the number of corals available for future spawning.
In the afternoon, fresh on jetlag, we filled a large cooler with ice and drove to CRIOBE to met Alexandre Fellous and pick up our frozen January 2022 (n = 37) and February 2022 (n = 36) physiological samples collected and frozen by Alex. We brought multiple samples; molecular RNA/DNA shield biopsies (n = 73; ~0.5 - 1 cm), snap frozen in LN2 biopsies (n = 73; ~0.5 - 1 cm); and frozen physiological fragments (n = 73; ~3 inches) back to Gump and stored the molecular samples in the biocode -40 C freezer and the physiological fragments in the molecular lab -40 C freezer. The histological samples (n = 2 per colony) preserved in 10% formalin are still in a CRIOBE 4 C fridge and will be picked up next week. All December 2021 samples except for histoloigcal fragments were transported to URI in December 2021.