Staffel 04 Episode 14: Impacts of Climate Change - Zebrafish Change Sex in Warmer Waters

Climate change is evident in many places around the world,
including inland waters. With this in mind, a team of researchers
has gained new insights into the epigenetic control of sexual
plasticity. Sex in many species of bony fish is plastic and is
determined in interaction between genetic and environmental
factors, especially temperature. In their study, Hosseini and her
colleagues show that variations in sex expression and sexual
plasticity are controlled by epigenetic mechanisms. The results
were published in the scientific journal "Frontiers in Cell and
Developmental Biology".


In this episode we clarify questions such as how climate change
affects the ecosystem of inland waters and its inhabitants, what
epigenetic control actually is, and how it can lead to a change
in the sex of the zebrafish, to name just a few of many
interesting questions.


Original publication: Hosseini et al. Epigenetic Regulation of
Phenotypic Sexual Plasticity Inducing Skewed Sex Ratio in
Zebrafish. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (2022).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2022.880779