Climate change is a global problem that influences how organisms live and function in their environment. Elucidating how climate change affects the oceans is especially important, as these bodies of water are home to some of human’s main food sources. Investigating how organisms adapt is essential for accurately predicting their survival, and tracking genomic changes helps researchers determine the lasting effects of the changing environment. Acartia tonsa—a type of marine plankton commonly known as a copepod—is a dominant coastal species and an important food source for fisheries. By studying bioindicator species such as A. tonsa, researchers can get an idea of how the ocean food chain might react to changes in the Earth’s climate.
Copepods are particularly useful for studying genetic changes in response to shifting marine environments. Tracking a copepod's evolving genome in the wild, however, can be time consuming and laborious. To circumvent this challenge, Melissa Pespeni and ...
