We know that climate change is collapsing coral reef ecosystems.

Hollie Putnam wants to understand why—in the face of climate change—some corals seem to persist while others die. In her lab, the biological sciences assistant professor and her students exposed adult corals to increased temperature and acidification—both key products of climate change—and then exposed their offspring to the same conditions.

They discovered that the growth rates of the offspring are greater if the parents have been pre-conditioned. The reason may lie with the science of epigenetics, or changes in gene expression and function that do not involve changes in DNA. 

Read “Can Coral Reefs Adapt?” in the Summer 2018 issue of QuadAngles to learn more about Putnam’s research and its implications for global conservation.