LOCATION: Building 2, level 5, room 5209

ABSTRACT: This thesis aims to describe the responses of the coral reef fish, Acanthochromis polyacanthus, to varying climate change scenarios at a molecular level. Despite recent efforts of research on this fish species, much is still unknown about reef fishes and how they will react to increasing temperatures and pCO2 concentrations in the ocean (both between and within generations). Different life stages of fishes can be more vulnerable than others; by using transgenerational experiments we can study the effects of stressors at different stages of development. Using these methods we can determine whether the parental exposure during oogenesis and reproduction, the offspring exposure post hatching, or the juvenile exposure is the most impactful on the reaction of the species to environmental variables. By understanding the phenotypes of the parents we can also use these transgenerational experimental designs to tease out the maternal and paternal input to the phenotype and genotype of the offspring. This study uses modern molecular tools to answer these questions including next generation sequencing of the transcriptome so we can better understand the molecular processes driving the phenotypic changes we see in this species. We will also use the new proteomics approach SWATH to determine the possible post-translation cellular modifications occurring in this fish under climate change scenarios. This method will create a new reference for the study of proteomics on reef fishes as well as a methodology report on the necessity of multiple tissue reference libraries within one study species.