Abstract

For several decades, man-made climate change (also known as Anthropogenic Climate Change) has become a prevalent scientific topic. Modern industrialization has brought along with it an increase in greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere which has resulted in the oceans absorbing more carbon dioxide than ever before. The increased carbon dioxide in the oceans results in the aqueous environment becoming more acidic due to an increased level of hydrogen ions and other acidic compounds. As the ocean waters become more acidic it affects protein function in marine organisms. We propose that under long-term acidic pressures, developmental processes such as the organizing of an organism’s body plan will be affected. A highly-conserved mechanism in body plan segmentation is a cluster of genes known as the homeobox. The homeobox or Hox gene cluster is responsible for coding transcription factors that determine the anterior-posterior axis of an organism. These transcription factors are proteins which are known for being highly unstable outside of an optimal pH and temperature range. We seek to complete a range of experiments on the Common Green Sea Urchin, Lytechinus variegatus, which is a widely used marine model organism. Overall, we will develop various environmental treatments for the analysis of Lytechinus variegatus development, validating them in three specific experiments to identify ocean acidification effects on colony health, individual calcium density, and determine how early genetic processes, such as the homeobox, will respond to the accelerated environmental changes.