Collaborative Research: Edge CMT: Polygenic traits of heat stress phenome in coral "dark genes" from genome to functional applications

In this project, the researchers will use genomics, genetics, and cell biology to understand the function of coral genes during heat stress. Thermal stress often causes the “bleaching” (whitening) of corals that is harming reefs worldwide and is a threat to marine biodiversity. Genes are the functional unit of DNA and how the coral reacts to heat stress is called its phenotype. There are many genes involved in achieving the heat response phenotype and they will be studied in this project. This is important because the function of many of these and other genes and how they influence the phenotype of corals are not understood. In addition, many of the coral stress genes are unknown in other organisms (i.e., they arose in corals), and therefore present the opportunity to discover the function of novel genes. This research is important because it will help in the understanding of how both known and novel genes function, which can aid in the conservation of coral reefs- a resource that is important for national security and economic growth. Lastly, this project will fund early career scientists and lead to broader impacts through the training and education of a diverse workforce in science. The overarching goal of this proposal is to determine the mechanistic drivers of the stress response in multicellular organisms, with a focus on the ecologically important corals. To achieve this goal, application of an end-to-end approach that extends from genes to phenotypes, to cell biology, using multi-omics and network methods with both holobiont and single cell data will be applied. This work will elucidate the coral stress phenome in species with differing reproductive strategies and geographical origins to determine the functions of both known and unknown (dark) genes. Generating this knowledge base will transform coral biology and more broadly, provide a research platform for testing hypotheses about the resilience of other ecosystems, marine and terrestrial, which is particularly important under accelerating climate change. This project aims to increase the understanding and predictive capability of how key properties of living systems emerge from the interaction of genomes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.