The Organismal Stress Response
All organisms live on a continuum of stress, whereby internal and external changes in the environment enact processes to cope. These coping strategies cost energy for survival. Dr. Martell is extremely curious about the hierarchy of this process, that is, how dose, timing and repeated stress events act in concert to modulate the organismal response and ultimately, the health state. In addition, the relative position of an organism on the stress continuum and the energetic costs of stress response mechanisms (e.g., the processes of DNA methylation or histone modification) govern organismal survival. Dr. Martell is interested in identifying the potential mechanisms, beneficial doses, and response curves of environmental memory in corals in response to thermal stress.
Coral stress hardening has the potential to improve coral restoration. Before we can harness this technology, we need to know what potential mechanisms might be evoked to identify the potential risks and optimize the benefits of stress hardening. With collaborators at Florida International University, Dr. Martell is investigating the physiological costs and benefits, dose dependence, and molecular mechanisms underpinning the coral stress hardening. [Publication]
The coral bleaching response is largely dependent upon the dose of thermal stress. However, only recently have coral researchers begun to examine thermal stress as a function of dose. Dr. Martell’s study revealed that coral bleaching in the staghorn coral is hormetic, that is, low doses might be beneficial, but higher doses bleached corals more severely.
DNA Methlyation with Thermal Dose
After observing a hormetic response to thermal dose, Dr. Martell is leading a study along with her collaborators at FIU to examine changes in DNA methylation with increasing thermal dose. Her experimental design from her 2023 study allows for examination of wash out effects ~ 1 week after priming. It will also be the first study to tie the coral bleaching phenotype during a simulated bleaching event to DNA methylation in primed and naive corals! Stay tuned for updates.
