Project Highlight
This project investigates how copper rockfish offspring respond to ocean acidification and hypoxia based on their parents' environmental experiences, exploring transgenerational plasticity as a potential rapid adaptation mechanism to changing ocean conditions.
Project Summary
Ocean acidification and hypoxia pose significant threats to marine ecosystems and may particularly affect long-lived, late-maturing species like rockfish in the California Current. This research focuses on understanding transgenerational plasticity — a mechanism where environmental conditions experienced by parents can influence their offspring's development and traits. While this phenomenon has been studied in other species, it remains largely unexplored in groundfish species, despite its potential importance as a rapid adaptive response to changing ocean chemistry within a single generation.
The project combines laboratory experiments and field studies to examine maternal effects and transgenerational plasticity in response to low pH and hypoxic conditions. Laboratory work exposes female rockfish to different environmental scenarios to understand how these conditions affect both the mothers and their developing offspring. Complementary field studies monitor wild rockfish populations during natural ocean acidification and hypoxia events, particularly during upwelling periods, to directly connect environmental changes with species responses.
Research findings from the project's second year reveal significant impacts on exposed fish, including reduced metabolic rates, altered blood chemistry and increased stress markers. Preliminary observations of larvae from affected mothers show developmental changes, including reduced birth size and potentially premature release timing. These results are being incorporated into stock assessment models to help predict how changing ocean conditions will affect future fishery yields, providing valuable information for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Pacific Fishery Management Council in managing ecologically and commercially important fish species.