Data from: Genetics of gene expression responses to temperature stress in a sea urchin gene network

Stress responses play an important role in shaping species distributions
and robustness to climate change. We investigated how stress responses
alter the contribution of additive genetic variation to gene expression
during development of the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus
purpuratus, under increased temperatures that model realistic climate
change scenarios. We first measured gene expression responses in the
embryos by RNA-seq to characterize molecular signatures of mild, chronic
temperature stress. We found that an increase from 12 °C to 18 °C caused
widespread alterations in gene expression including in genes involved in
protein folding, RNA processing, and development. To understand the
quantitative genetic architecture of this response, we then focused on a
well-characterized gene network involved in endomesoderm and ectoderm
specification. Using a breeding design with wild-caught individuals, we
measured genetic and gene-environment interaction effects on 72 genes
within this network. We found genetic or maternal effects in 33 of these
genes, and that the genetic effects were correlated in the network. 14
network genes also responded to higher temperatures, but we found no
significant genotype-environment interactions in any of the genes. This
absence may be due to an effective buffering of the temperature
perturbations within the network. In support of this hypothesis,
perturbations to regulatory genes did not affect the expression of the
genes that they regulate. Together, these results provide novel insights
into the relationship between environmental change and developmental
evolution and suggest that climate change may not expose large amounts of
cryptic genetic variation to selection in this species.