Developing and validating an assisted gene flow toolkit to genetically rescue climate-vulnerable kelp forests in Tasmania.
Giant Kelp at Tinderbox Marine Reserve | Photo credit: Andrew Wilson | Photo source: CSIRO
Team & Partners: Drs. Anusuya Willis, Hugo Scharfenstein, Cintia Iha, Rebecca Jordan, Cayne Layton (CSIRO), The Nature Conservancy, Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Scripps/UCSD
Challenge: Ocean warming has eliminated >95% of Tasmania’s giant kelp. Remnant forests are critically inbred with little capacity to adapt.
Approach: Leverage genomically characterized, heat-tolerance-screened individuals to selectively breed a vulnerable forest with genetically diverse donor populations, outplanting F1 crosses, and tracking fitness and genetic recovery through the F2 generation.
Anticipated outcomes: Field-validated proof of concept for genomics-informed genetic rescue in a marine system, with a replicable framework for kelp conservation globally.
