A New Lens into Ocean Optimism

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Katelyn Jones ('24), a Biology major, researched how the temperature northern star coral responds to heat stress in an effort to better understand symbiosis in corals. Katelyn was mentored by Dr. Katie Barott (Department of Biology) and this research was supported by the College Alumni Society Undergraduate Research Grant.

Last spring, I was able to study the fascinating phylum of cnidarians with a new lens by working with a new-to-me organism, Astrangia poculata, the temperate northern star coral. This species is relatively understudied compared to tropical, reef-building corals which you might find while snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. The low number of studies can be explained partly by environmental differences between temperate corals and tropical corals. People typically hear about corals in the context of “coral bleaching,” a concerning phenomenon that has been occurring for the past several decades at an increasing frequency due to gradual ocean warming, which is primarily a result of increased CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. Some years, there are extreme heat-wave events, causing the corals to “bleach,” where single-celled algae that reside inside of the tissues of the coral animals are kicked out. The symbiosis between algal and coral partners is crucial to the coral, as the algae feed the coral nutritious sugars produced via photosynthesis. If the corals do not re-partner with more algal symbionts after temperatures have cooled down, they risk starvation and eventual death, which has negative implications for the other organisms that exist in the extremely biodiverse reefs that they form.

However, Astrangia poculata is not a tropical, reef-building coral, and is not under the same infamous bleaching risks. Instead, the organism is facultatively symbiotic, meaning that some tissues and polyps do have algal symbionts and are dark in color, while others are aposymbiotic and lack algal partners. It is this flexibility that is fascinating to scientists in the field, as it allows us to ask questions about symbiosis that are unethical or impractical in tropical corals. My research question was aimed at understanding symbiosis in corals under heat stress without the effect of bleaching to understand more of the host-specific responses to heat stress. Specifically, I wanted to know if heat stress differentially impacted regulatory proteins within the corals across symbiont densities (from aposymbiotic to fully symbiotic colonies).

We found some evidence that the animals were not stressed in the ways we might have predicted. As a brief example, the amount of protein in the coral decreased in the heat-stressed group compared to the control group, however the intracellular pH of coral cells was not significantly different between treatment groups. This aspect conflicts with our previous findings from a heat-stress experiment done in Exaiptasia diaphana, highlighting not only the complexity of symbiosis in different cnidarian species but also the importance of studying useful and relevant model systems.

This experience of designing an experiment from beginning to end highlighted the importance of grit in science. Not only are scientific concepts often abstract and conceptual before you can actually see the data, but the days can be technical and challenging. It was helpful for me to hold the reason for why I cared about the experiment, the results, and the overall effort into the science at the front of my mind. Climate change and the future of humans' experience on Earth is important to me, not to mention the preservation of nature as its own autonomous entity. I’ve gained technical skills, science communication skills, and academic writing skills by performing this experiment and existing in an academic laboratory space. 

I’ve also found that science is most rewarding to me when I contextualize my own work with that of the entire field. Will the reefs be saved from my somewhat incomplete experiment on temperate corals? The answer is probably not. But I think I’ve immersed myself in the field enough to see how collectively, we inch closer and closer to a more complete understanding of how corals might respond in the face of climate change. Amidst the “doom and gloom” of climate change, little wins like contributing bits and pieces of information can help build our global feelings of “ocean optimism”. As Dr. Brent Helliker presented in his ecology class, the world keeps turning and cycling, with or without us - what are we going to do to ensure our future? - Katelyn Jones

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