Abstract:

Marine zooplankton play an important role in regulating the global biogeochemical cycle and serve as the key link between lower and higher trophic levels. Considering their ecological significance, understanding their evolutionary success under ocean acidification (OA) conditions is useful for ecosystem management. Changes in the transcriptome driven by DNA methylation in response to rapid environmental stress give marine animals the ability to create phenotypic plasticity. It is currently unknown, however, whether DNA methylation’s role in phenotypic plasticity applies to zooplankton (microscopic organisms) with small genomes. This is due to technological limitations in non-model species including difficulty accommodating small sample size population analyses. The purpose of the present studies was to investigate whether epigenetic changes may be key mechanisms in zooplankton for enhancing their transgenerational plasticity in response to environmental stressors. In this seminar, I would like to introduce two research about 1) epigenetic plasticity enables copepods to cope with OA, 2) history of exposure to increased CO2 levels is an important factor that determines the susceptibility of rotifers to nanosized plastics (NPs).
1) I investigate the mechanisms underlying the multigenerational reproductive resilience of a copepod to ocean acidification. I demonstrate that recovery of negative reproductive impacts are linked to epigenetic changes, and highlight the need to consider plasticity in estimating future vulnerabilities.
2) I examine whether, and in what way, adaptive responses to OA the may affect the physiological, transcriptomic, and epigenomic responses of the filter feeding rotifers to NPs. These results suggest that adaptive transgenerational plasticity to elevated CO2 levels is important in shaping the interactions between environmental stressors in rotifers.

Biography:

Senior researcher, Institute of Basic Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea, 2022~now (SKKU Science Fellow)
Post-doc, Institute of Basic Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea, 2020~2022
Ph.D., Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate school Sungkyunkwan University, United course of the master’s and the doctor’s, 2016~2020
B.Sc., Department of Biological Sciences/Department of Education Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea, 2007~2016

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