| Summary: | Due to global climate change, arctic waters are warming two to four times faster than the global average, posing a threat to the cold-adapted fishes that inhabit the region. As many of these fishes are important targets of subsistence fishing activity, this warming may present a threat not just to the future of these species, but also to the food and cultural security of surrounding human communities. In order to better understand their resilience we are building datasets that will allow us to explore the persistence of the genetic tools that allow fish to tolerate warmer waters. Specifically, we are constructing transcriptomes for five phylogenetically diverse fish species common to the North Slope of Alaska, and identifying genes that are key parts of heat-responding pathways to understand how they may have been impacted in these species by evolution in the cold.
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