The Work of the Center

Over the course of two years, undergraduate Shannon Monahan and Professor Berg conducted an experiment examining the impact of male kinship patterns on female reproductive success. This study is now published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (see full text here).

Human-induced environmental change can influence populations both at the global level through climatic warming and at the local level through the fragmentation or destruction of habitats. As populations become more isolated, they can suffer from high levels of inbreeding, which can contribute to a reduction in the health and number of offspring. This reduction in reproductive health, or “fitness,” is termed inbreeding depression. However, it is still unclear if this increase in inbreeding also results in a corresponding increase in sensitivity to stressful conditions, which could intensify the already damaging effects of environmental warming.

In a series of experiments conducted in the spring and fall of 2019, Professor Berg, lab technician Sophie Bricout, AUP undergraduate Victoria Candela, and two collaborators from the University of East Anglia assessed the life-long impact of increased mutation load and elevated temperature on key life-history traits in the seed beetle. They found that beetles raised at higher temperatures had far-reduced fitness and survival than beetles from control temperatures. Importantly, these negative effects were exacerbated in inbred beetles as a result of increased mutation load, with further detrimental effects manifesting on individual hatching probability and lifetime reproductive success.

These results reveal the harmful impact that increasing temperatures, and the increasing likelihood of habitat fragmentation due to anthropogenetic changes in environmental conditions, could have on populations of organisms worldwide. The study is now published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology (full article available here).

Professor Berg and Professor Claudio Piani are conducting a long-term experiment on the impacts of climate change (increased and more variable temperatures) on seed beetle reproduction, development and body size. The first phase of the experiment is complete and will be submitted for publication shortly. The second phase is underway and should be completed by the end of 2023.

Professor Manuel Caballer Gutierrez and Professor Berg are designing a behavioral experiment on fluorescent marine molluscs, which they intend to carry out in 2022–23. Specifically, it will examine how heterobranch sea slugs (molluscs without a shell) from the genus Berghia respond under different light conditions. This group of molluscs was selected because they possess fluorescent pigments, the function of which is unknown, but which may play a role in species recognition.

Caballer and Berg have been working with Olivier Fauvarque and Justin Rouxel from IFREMER (Centre de Bretagne, Laboratoire Détection, Capteurs et Mesures, Plouzané, France) to design and construct a specialized UV lighting system; with Etienne Bourgouin from the Aquarium de Paris to house and breed the study specimens (pictured below); and with Marcel Koken (Labocea – CNRS, Plouzané, France), an expert in fluorescence, to design the experiments that will be carried out at the AUP laboratory with the help of undergraduate students and lab technician Sophie Bricout.

In 2018, Professor Berg collaborated with economics professor Kevin Capehart (CSU Fresno) on a taste test experiment. With the help of our economics and science students, we examined whether people could consistently tell the difference between different brands of high-end mineral water. Results of that experiment suggested that consumers might not be very good at telling the difference between waters with similar mineral concentrations. The study is now published in the Journal of Wine Economics. Among other projects, Berg and Capehart are working on a follow-up experiment using waters with more varied mineral concentrations.