Investigating the Effects of Increased Temperature on the Metabolic Plasticity of Invasive Mollusk Potamopyrgus antipodarum.

Himani Patel Author

08/02/2021 Added

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With climate change and increasing temperature, it is predicted that the invasion rate will increase. The invasive alien species have an unknown physiological advantage to survive the changing climate conditions. This research on the metabolic plasticity of invasive mollusk 'New Zealand Mud Snail' with increasing temperature will provide us with a better understanding of the acclimation and adaptation of such invasive species in new ecosystems.

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[00:00:00.690]Hello everyone.
[00:00:01.830]I'm Himani Patel pursuing a bachelor's of science in biology from the University of
[00:00:06.720]Nebraska Lincoln. I'm from India.
[00:00:09.870]I am an aspiring biologist and bioinformatician.
[00:00:14.730]Focus of my research
[00:00:15.450]is climate change and
[00:00:17.850]Conservation biology.
[00:00:20.160]My project is funded and supported by Undergraduate Creative Activities and
[00:00:24.780]Research Experience. Also known as UCARE,
[00:00:28.350]I'm grateful to get this chance to, you know,
[00:00:31.630]present my research through UCARE. Um,
[00:00:35.610]Today, I'll be talking about how the increasing temperatures affect the metabolic
[00:00:40.470]rate and physiology of the invasive, freshwater
[00:00:45.240]species, Potamopyrgus antipodarum. weird name,
[00:00:50.040]right? But you can call it New Zealand mud
[00:00:52.230]snail. Let us first talk about invasive alien species and climate
[00:00:57.210]change.
[00:00:58.080]These two factors at the leading cause of species extinction and
[00:01:02.790]biodiversity loss.
[00:01:04.770]Invasive alien species are the organisms non-native to the
[00:01:09.300]ecosystem, which negatively impacts native biodiversity.
[00:01:14.160]The invasive alien species are mostly resilient and can survive a
[00:01:19.140]wide range of temperatures, salinity,
[00:01:22.740]altitude and other abiotic factors while the native species are not
[00:01:27.240]resilient. So they are led to extinction in the long run.
[00:01:33.350]So now there are
[00:01:34.880]some research evidences that suggest that with climate change,
[00:01:39.020]the invasion rate will increase. However,
[00:01:43.220]the question remains, how do the invaders,
[00:01:46.610]survive increasing temperature and what genetic
[00:01:51.500]phenotypic and physiological factors help them thrive?
[00:01:55.730]How does the metabolic plasticity play a role in their invasive
[00:02:00.170]potential?
[00:02:02.390]Answering these questions will help us figure out ways to combat
[00:02:06.770]invasive alien species and save biodiversity. By saving
[00:02:11.450]biodiversity; We will mitigate the risk of climate change.
[00:02:15.350]And that, in turn, will decrease the rate of invasion.
[00:02:20.630]To fill in this knowledge gap,
[00:02:22.250]I developed the experiment where I compare the metabolic rate of these
[00:02:27.080]snails at different temperatures.
[00:02:31.010]But before I explain
[00:02:32.030]my experiment, let me introduce my model organism, New Zealand Mud
[00:02:36.740]Snail. Um, it is very tiny four to six millimeters in length.
[00:02:41.990]Um, you can also see the size comparison with a dime.
[00:02:46.640]These nails are impressively resilient and they spread,
[00:02:50.210]or I should say they invade new ecosystem by surviving on a fishing
[00:02:55.100]gear or a boat and they travel wherever we,
[00:02:59.800]humans,
[00:03:00.610]travel. Now, why do I use
[00:03:04.900]this model to investigate the effects of climate change?
[00:03:08.620]Well, this snail
[00:03:10.480]can survive wide range of temperatures,
[00:03:13.360]and we can see that because this snail has invaded all continents in
[00:03:18.160]last 150 years.
[00:03:21.160]This gives us the opportunity to investigate and compare the metabolic response
[00:03:25.750]of this snail across different environmental conditions.
[00:03:29.110]So, this is the best model for my research.
[00:03:32.800]I used five lineages of 37A mitochondrial haplotype.
[00:03:38.650]Now what does that mean?
[00:03:40.720]That means that all lineages in that haplotype will have the same
[00:03:45.550]mitochondrial genome, but they will have a variation in their nuclear genome.
[00:03:51.670]We collected these snails from the lake in New Zealand called Mapourika.
[00:03:57.460]So what is the specific research question I'm trying to answer?
[00:04:02.440]How does the metabolic rate of New Zealand mud snail change with
[00:04:06.970]elevated temperature across different lineages?
[00:04:11.500]What are the approaches I used? first is respirometry,
[00:04:15.970]I measured the whole organisms metabolic rate at 16 degrees Celsius and
[00:04:20.800]22 degrees Celsius. 2. Global metabolic profiling,
[00:04:24.700]where I performed enzyme assays,
[00:04:27.190]which gave us the physiological comparison between these lineages
[00:04:33.100]3. nuclear genome analysis.
[00:04:35.590]This is the extension of my research where I'll be doing bioinformatics analysis
[00:04:40.210]to see if there are any genetic basis of the metabolic plasticity.
[00:04:46.330]Now, what was the experimental design? very straightforward.
[00:04:51.610]The five different lineages were used in this experiment.
[00:04:55.450]The control group was kept at 16 degrees Celsius for two weeks.
[00:05:00.340]The whole organism's metabolic rate was measured.
[00:05:03.550]The snails were sacrificed and the whole body issue was frozen in
[00:05:08.140]liquid nitrogen.
[00:05:09.250]And it was stored at negative 80 degrees Celsius for further
[00:05:13.870]analysis. Um,
[00:05:16.330]the same process was followed for the 22 degrees Celsius experimental group.
[00:05:22.300]And after designing this experiment,
[00:05:24.550]we hypothesized that the metabolic rate should increase with
[00:05:29.170]increasing temperature for all lineages, right?
[00:05:32.080]It makes sense that it should increase if we increase the temperature.
[00:05:37.630]Now you might.
[00:05:38.680]Wonder how do we measure the whole organisms metabolic rate?
[00:05:43.630]We use respirometer to do that. There's a small,
[00:05:47.080]small Water-filled chamber inside of the respirometer,
[00:05:51.400]and it is attached, to an incubator, which, uh,
[00:05:55.840]controls the temperature of that chamber.
[00:05:59.660]So we put our snail inside that chamber for about 45 minutes. Um,
[00:06:03.740]the snail respires inside the chamber,
[00:06:05.840]and there is a drop in the oxygen concentration,
[00:06:08.600]which is measured by the electrode attached to the chamber.
[00:06:12.770]As you see on the screen.
[00:06:15.190]It gives you a
[00:06:16.090]beautiful graph on the computer,
[00:06:18.790]which tells us the change in oxygen concentration with time.
[00:06:24.700]This is the snail stock room image, and this is me working with snails,
[00:06:30.010]changing the water and feeding them
[00:06:34.060]After data collection.
[00:06:35.170]I performed ANOVA analysis and built these beautiful graphs.
[00:06:40.640]The P-value on the graph suggests that there is a significant
[00:06:45.130]difference between the metabolic rate of these lineages at both temperatures,
[00:06:50.830]as you can see,
[00:06:52.030]MP 18-19 in Green has lower metabolic rate at 16 degrees
[00:06:56.470]Celsius than MP 18-8 in purple. Now,
[00:07:01.000]if you compare the rates at 22 degrees Celcius,
[00:07:04.000]it's the other way around. MP 18-19
[00:07:06.700]lineage has increased the metabolic rate with increasing temperature.
[00:07:11.260]Whereas the MP 18-8
[00:07:12.940]has lowered the metabolic rate at elevated temperature.
[00:07:19.060]So what can we conclude from this graph?
[00:07:21.820]We can say that there is a significant difference in metabolic rate of the
[00:07:26.500]lineages. And that might be due to the change,
[00:07:31.270]the variation in the nuclear genome.
[00:07:34.870]Then I performed two factors ANOVA analysis, which gave this graph,
[00:07:40.030]um, where you can see that only one lineage,
[00:07:43.540]show a significant increase in the metabolic rate with increasing
[00:07:47.290]temperature, um, MP 18-19, the green one,
[00:07:53.170]the red MP-18-9 show an increase,
[00:07:56.980]but it is not significant orange and blue lineages have almost the
[00:08:01.720]same metabolic rate at both temperatures. However,
[00:08:05.530]MP 18-8 in purple show a decrease in metabolic rate with
[00:08:10.510]elevated temperature.
[00:08:12.340]So the initial hypothesis stated that the metabolic rates would increase
[00:08:17.200]for all of the lineages with increasing temperature. It is only true for one of the
[00:08:22.180]lineages and not the rest.
[00:08:26.530]To find out the reasons.
[00:08:27.820]We need to extend this research and extend this experiment.
[00:08:32.740]Um, and
[00:08:34.540]that brings us to conclusions and future directions. From the results,
[00:08:39.400]We can conclude that there is a standing genetic variation in the natural
[00:08:44.110]snail population,
[00:08:45.370]which is affecting their metabolic rate at different temperatures.
[00:08:50.050]And this should be due to a variation in their nuclear genome,
[00:08:55.620]as they shared the same mitochondrial genome.
[00:08:59.070]The extension of this research would be to analyze the genome for
[00:09:03.960]the single nucleotide polymorphisms sites.
[00:09:07.110]It's also known as SNP sites to get a better understanding of
[00:09:11.820]how the metabolic rate is changing with temperature.
[00:09:16.650]With that, I will conclude my talk. And if you would like to follow my work,
[00:09:21.990]my research, please follow me on Twitter on this handle, Himani_D_Patel.
[00:09:26.430]And I would love to connect with you and answer any questions you may
[00:09:31.140]have. Thank you.

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Investigating the Effects of Increased Temperature on the Metabolic Plasticity of Invasive Mollusk Potamopyrgus antipodarum.

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