Transcriptome-to-phenome response of larval Eastern oysters under multiple drivers of aragonite undersaturation

A growing body of research suggests that co-occurring abiotic factors elicit additive or multiplicative responses, highlighting the need for multifactorial experiments. Prolific documentation of osmotic, thermal, and OA tolerance suggests that the Eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica is an ideal model to understand adaptive transcriptome-to-phenome effects of environmental change using these three environmentally relevant, co-occurring stressors. In this study, C. virginica were exposed from embryos until settlement as recently metamorphosed juveniles to low v. high salinity, pCO2, and temperature in a crossed, full-factorial design to understand how environmental co-variance affects organismal response. To this end, we used gene expression analysis to examine the transcriptional underpinnings of growth, survival, and respiration rate in response to multiple drivers of reduced aragonite.