[All-postdocs] Bioseminar Cory Berger

[Ana M Velez]

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Biology Department Seminar
Thursday, September 29, 2022 - 12:00 Noon

Cory Berger
PhD candidate, WHOI/MIT Joint Program

How Does the Sea Anemone Circadian Clock Behave Under Conflicting Light and Temperature Cycles?
Nearly all living things use circadian clocks to anticipate daily cycles in their environment. To properly synchronize to 24h cycles, clocks use information from "zeitgebers", such as light and temperature cycles, to infer time of day. This raises the question of how clocks integrate information from multiple co-occurring zeitgebers, and what happens when those zeitgebers may provide conflicting information. Understanding clock behavior in multi-zeitgeber systems is important for predicting the effects of anthropogenic stressors such as artificial light pollution, yet few studies have explicitly tested circadian behavior under conflicting zeitgeber cycles ("sensory conflict"). In this talk, I will discuss my recent work studying the effects of sensory conflict on circadian behavior and gene expression in the model sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. Circadian behavior was severely disrupted under extreme sensory conflict, in a fashion that depended on the specific phase relationship between zeitgebers. Sensory conflict also altered the rhythmic transcriptome and disrupted the expression of metabolic gene modules. However, hundreds of genes also gained rhythmic expression and core clock genes remained rhythmic, suggesting a surprising robustness of transcriptional rhythmicity. Temperature cycles seem to be the dominant driver of rhythmic gene expression in this animal, although light exerts strong direct effects on behavior.

HYBRID! In person: Redfield Auditorium  Zoom: https://whoi-edu.zoom.us/j/99334284624 Meeting ID: 993 3428 4624    By dial: Find your local number: https://whoi-edu.zoom.us/u/aV4CccUnP
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