Transgenerational Plasticity as a Mechanism of Heatwave Adaptation in Petrolisthes cinctipes
Liliana Pruett
Department of Biology
Faculty Supervisor: Jonathon Stillman
I collected 48 reproductive crab pairs from Fort Ross, CA, and housed them in an independent flow-through aquarium system at San Francisco State University. The crabs were divided into four groups of 12 pairs, each assigned to a different heatwave exposure: control (no heatwaves), low (once every other week), medium (once per week), and high (three times per week). Heatwaves were simulated by exposing crabs to air at 26°C for one hour.
Crabs were monitored weekly for embryos. Upon oviposition, I collected 24 embryos per brood, assigning 12 to a control group and 12 to a treatment group that underwent a subsequent heat shock at 32°C. Embryos were individually housed in a 96-well plate at 14°C and imaged weekly to track growth, yolk consumption, and hatching rates.
I hypothesized that increased parental heatwave exposure would produce more thermally tolerant embryos. My results show that parents exposed to more heatwaves produced embryos with reduced growth rates, increased heat tolerance in terms of hatching success, and greater variability in yolk consumption. This suggests transgenerational plasticity in response to thermal stress, with an energetic tradeoff between growth, hatching success, and yolk consumption.