Decoding marine physiological mechanisms to build biotechnological resilience

Cutting-edge biotechnological innovations and transdisciplinary approaches have opened the door for deep understanding of physiological activities within marine organisms. These tools and approaches facilitate integrated studies of complex endogenous processes, such as immunological responses, metabolic pathway perturbations, and mechanisms that underpin survival and resilience in the face of unprecedented global change effects.

Multi-omics approaches are now being used routinely to investigate genotype to phenotype research questions in organisms exposed to a range of environmental conditions, such as increasing ocean temperatures and pathogen loads. Of particular importance is the area of biomarker discovery for early diagnostics of health, nutritional improvements, growth enhancement and production success in fisheries and aquaculture. Integrating these new advances with ground-truthedtraditional techniques may give us the best chance to understand and respond to current and future global environmental challenges:

• How does an organism respond to stressors (e.g., diseases,pollutants, temperature, acidification) and their cumulative effects?
• What are the tipping points for populations facing increasedstress frequencies and magnitudes? Can these be predicted?
• Can we add resilience and future-proof our commercially important marine populations and preserve those which areecologically sensitive?

As scientists, we have much to do…!

Speaker: Andrea Alfaro, UC Davis