Timing-specific parental effects of ocean warming in a coral reef fish.

Population and species persistence in a rapidly warming world will be determined by an organism's ability to acclimate to warmer conditions, especially across generations. There is potential for transgenerational acclimation but the importance of ontogenetic timing in the transmission of environmentally induced parental effects remains mostly unknown. We aimed to disentangle the effects of two critical ontogenetic stages (juvenile development and reproduction) to the new-generation acclimation potential, by exposing the spiny chromis damselfish to simulated ocean warming across two generations.

Matching maternal and paternal experiences underpin molecular thermal acclimation.

The environment experienced by one generation has the potential to affect the subsequent one through non-genetic inheritance of parental effects. Since both mothers and fathers can influence their offspring, questions arise regarding how the maternal, paternal and offspring experiences integrate into the resulting phenotype. We aimed to disentangle the maternal and paternal contributions to transgenerational thermal acclimation in a reef fish, Acanthochromis polyacanthus, by exposing two generations to elevated temperature (+1.

Long non-coding RNAs mediate fish gene expression in response to ocean acidification.

The majority of the transcribed genome does not have coding potential but these non-coding transcripts play crucial roles in transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of protein-coding genes. Regulation of gene expression is important in shaping an organism's response to environmental changes, ultimately impacting their survival and persistence as population or species face global change. However, the roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), when confronted with environmental changes, remain largely unclear.

Warming affects routine swimming activity and novel odour response in larval zebrafish.

Temperature is a primary factor affecting the physiology of ectothermic animals and global warming of water bodies may therefore impact aquatic life. Understanding the effects of near-future predicted temperature changes on the behaviour and underlying molecular mechanisms of aquatic animals is of particular importance, since behaviour mediates survival. In this study, we investigate the effects of developmental temperature on locomotory behaviour and olfactory learning in the zebrafish, Danio rerio.

Parents exposed to warming produce offspring lower in weight and condition.

The parental environment can alter offspring phenotypes via the transfer of non-genetic information. Parental effects may be viewed as an extension of (within-generation) phenotypic plasticity. Smaller size, poorer physical condition, and skewed sex ratios are common responses of organisms to global warming, yet whether parental effects alleviate, exacerbate, or have no impact on these responses has not been widely tested.