10/21/2025
By Irma Silva

The Kennedy College of Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences, invites you to attend a Ph.D. dissertation proposal defense in Applied Biology by Julia McDonough titled "Oyster Epigenetics: Investigating the molecular mechanisms behind climate change stressor-induced carryover effects.”

Candidate: Julia McDonough
Degree: Doctoral
Date: Friday, Oct. 31
Time: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Location: Ball Hall 302 and via Zoom

Committee Members:

  • Sarah Gignoux-Wolfsohn (Advisor), Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, UMass Lowell
  • Teresa Lee (Committee Chair), Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, UMass Lowell
  • Frederic Chain, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences, UMass Lowell
  • Sarah Donelan, Assistant Professor, Biology, UMass Dartmouth

Title: Oyster Epigenetics: Investigating the molecular mechanisms behind climate change stressor-induced carryover effects

Brief Abstract:
Anthropogenic change is rapidly altering the environment, especially impacting marine invertebrates such as eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica). As a result, oysters encounter multiple stressors, specifically warming and hypoxia, which affect different aspects of their biology. Because environments experienced now are likely to change in the future, even within a single lifetime, it is especially valuable to understand how climate change affects oysters through within-generation carryover effects (hereafter carryover effects), which refers to past environments that influence the response, whether physical or molecular, to current environments. 

Previous studies have shown early exposures to environmental stressors can carry over and influence tissue and shell growth in oysters. However, the molecular processes (namely, gene expression and methylation) that are behind or persist independently of phenotypic carryover effects are poorly understood. My research uses experimental oysters that experienced multiple exposures and stressors to better understand 1) the molecular carryover effects of climate change stressors, 2) the relationship between DNA methylation and gene regulation in eastern oysters and 3) the molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic carryover effects.