Spartina Alterniflora: Modelling Molecular Stress Mechanisms in Urbanized Species

Overview

To best protect urban estuaries, understanding how marsh life acclimates to increasing urbanization at the molecular level is critical. Urban runoff, a major product of urbanization, negatively impacts salt marsh life. Pollutants such as motor oil are carried by rainwater and settle in nearby salt marshes. We previously found that organisms in urban estuaries are chronically stressed and thus have potentially heightened defense mechanisms. By assessing heat shock protein levels and global methylation change, we explored how chronically stressed plants respond to acute stress. We performed assays on a foundational plant species, Spartina alterniflora, native to both Bronx River, NY, and Greenwich Cove, CT. Spartina alterniflora provides many ecosystem services such as acting as a natural barrier to floods, filtering water, and forming nutrient rich soil. The Bronx River amasses many contaminants from New York City and thus functions as the “polluted site.” Greenwich Cove acts as the “clean site” or control, since it is located in an apparently more pristine environment. We exposed plants from both sites to varying concentrations of motor oil in a modeled salt marsh environment. We quantified stress levels using two different metrics. We measured levels of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70), a universal stress response protein. In addition, we measured changes in global methylation, an indicator of epigenetic response. Our research suggests that the plants from Greenwich Cove are able to launch a greater stress response when exposed to motor oil as compared to plants from the Bronx River. Motor oil exposure correlated with greater levels of HSP70 in Greenwich Cove plants compared to Bronx River plants. Furthermore, motor oil exposure significantly increased methylation in Greenwich Cove plants and slightly changed methylation in Bronx River plants. As our research continues, we expect to see consistent response patterns in grasses from high stress environments as well as a clear relationship between global methylation levels and stress protein levels.

Competition history

• AJAS 2019 Category not listed

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• AJAS None projects
• Every AJAS 2019 project