Michael Berger
berger@darkwing.uoregon.edu

University of Oregon
Oregon Institute of Marine Biology
P.O. Box 5389
Charleston, OR 97420 USA

Advisors:
Dr. Richard Emlet, Institute of Marine Biology
Dr. Patrick Phillips, Center for Ecology & Evolution

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Research Interests

Many sessile intertidal organisms are exposed to physiologically stressful conditions during a low tide. For example, the acorn barnacle, Balanus glandula, can experience a 15 °C increase in body temperature during a daytime low tide. In response to an external stress such as temperature, organisms will increase the synthesis of heat-shock proteins (hsp’s) in an effort to save existing proteins from irreversible damage. I am interested in the physiological adaptations of marine organisms to their habitat and how these organisms respond to ecologically relevant stress. Using a physiological response such as protein expression patterns, I would like to understand what conditions are stressful to an organism.

While investigating the induced heat shock response in B. glandula, I have observed a significant variation in hsp synthesis between individuals. The observed variance suggests that at the individual level, B. glandula does not display the same the physiological response to thermal stress.

Based on current results, I plan to examine the cause of individual variation in B. glandula induced hsp expression during thermal stress. Some potential causes of the variation are microclimate effects, molt cycle stage, reproductive state, duration of stress or genetic variation within the population.

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Publications

... none currently ...