• Celebration of Scholars 2020

  • Atmospheric Gas Loss in Hot Jupiters Under Variable Stellar Irradiation
  • Automated Repair of Buffer Overflow
  • Biogeochemical Cycling of Nutrient Elements in Stormwater Retention Ponds
  • Bioinformatic Investigation of Nuclear Transport
  • Buried Alive: Ecology of the Infaunal Sponge Oceanapia
  • Caloric Load Preferentially Influences Epithelial Differentiation in the Murine Uterus to Drive Endometrial Hyperplasia
  • A Compilation of Systems That Are Both Novae and Dwarf Novae
  • Computer Modeling of Nucleophilic Substitution and Beta Elimination Reactions
  • Cubed Sphere: Simulating Tilted Black Hole Accretion Disk and Their Effects on Astrophysical Jets
  • Data Visualization: From Covid-19 to Back on the Bricks
  • Designing a Mobile Flood Warning Application for the Charleston, SC Region
  • Developing a Mobile Application for Flood Warning in the Charleston, SC Region
  • Discovering Authorship of Flawed Code Snippets
  • Dynamic Network Activation of Hypothalamic Neurons in REM Sleep
  • Effect of Storage Temperature and Time on Urine Electrolyte Assessment
  • Effects of Changeover-Requirement Location on Between-Sequence Variation in Pigeons
  • The Effects of Estradiol Treatment on Synaptic Reorganization and Plasticity Around Motoneurons After Traumatic Peripheral Nerve Injury in Mice.
  • Effects of Steroid Hormones on Voluntary Physical Activity Levels
  • Encountering Overdose: An Analysis of College Students' Overdose Experiences
  • Evolution of Pelvis Musculoskeletal Anatomy in Lizards
  • Examining the Back To Bricks Reopening Plan on Various Demographics Within Charleston
  • Expanding LGBTQ+ Responsiveness at CofC Student Health Services
  • Expression-building in Squid 3
  • Growing Up Salty: The Effects of Transient Salinity on Tadpole Growth, Behavior, and Development
  • HailPoint, Broadcasting, and Social Media
  • A Hubble Space Telescope Direct Imaging Investigation of Extrasolar Planets
  • Inter-comparison of Rainfall Measurements from 1- and 2-Dimensional Video Disdrometers
  • Investigating Nanocolloids Using Shadowgraphy
  • Investigating the Effect of Episodic Stellar Activity on Planetary Evolution
  • Investigating Truncated Disk Simulations for Signs of Quasi Periodic Oscillations
  • Lower Extremity Jump-Landing Biomechanics After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction with Quadriceps Tendon Versus Patellar Tendon Autografts
  • Mapping Water in the Outer Asteroid Belt - Origins of Life
  • Mars Map Maker: User Empowerment in Meta Data and Data Submission
  • MARS: Middleware for Assisting the Registration of Samples
  • Patterns Observed on Mussel Bed Formation
  • Preliminary Analysis of Bulk Rain Variables Acquired from Laser Precipitation Monitors Mounted at Different Heights on a Vertical Tower
  • Progress Toward Anti-microbial Polymers: Adventures in Small Molecule Synthesis and Polymer Synthesis
  • Properly Resolving the Effective Measurement Area in a High-Fidelity Rain Measurement Device
  • A Religious History of the College of Charleston
  • Simulations of Light Transmission Through a Virtual Cloud
  • Strongly Magnetized Disks & Thermal Stability
  • Subdividing Rain Drop Arrivals into Steady Intervals
  • Synthesis and Spectral Characterization of 6-membered Silanes
  • Teaching Data Science Skills with a Focus on Visualization
  • Thermochemistry of Novel Polymers
  • A Tomographic Scan of the Accretion Disk Around a Supermassive Black Hole
  • Topsoil: An Open-Source Visualization Engine for Geochronological Data
  • Tropical Cyclone Climatology for Columbia and Greenville SC
  • Two-scale Factor Universality of O2: Experiments Under Density Gradients
  • Uncertainty of Heterogeneous Freezing Rate of Water on Muscovite Mica
  • The Use and Abuse of Philosophy in History: James Warley Miles and the Dangers of Racist Dehistoricization
  • Using Sentinel-2 MSI Data to Monitor the Physical Environment of Coral Reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands
  • Virtual Assistant for Pair Programming (VAPP)
  • Women with HIV's Perception of Coercion During Contraceptive and Infant Feeding Counseling

College Home / Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities / A Glance at Research / Celebration of Scholars 2020 / Growing Up Salty: The Effects of Transient Salinity on Tadpole Growth, Behavior, and Development

Student: Gabi Tutelo and Isabella Rupert

Major: Marine Biology

Mentors: Dr. Allison Welch

Department: Biology

Growing Up Salty: The Effects of Transient Salinity on Tadpole Growth, Behavior, and Development

Freshwater ecosystems are undergoing significant degradation due to human activity. Road deicing, agricultural practices, and rising sea levels have been linked to the salinization of freshwater environments. Elevated salinity levels can have lethal and sublethal effects on freshwater organisms. Amphibians are exceptionally vulnerable to these conditions because of their semi-permeable skin, low salinity tolerance, and complex life cycle. Tadpoles exposed to elevated salinity have an increased mortality rate and, in milder cases, suppressed growth and development. These effects increase chances of predation and can ultimately have a negative impact on reproduction. When exposed to these stressors, amphibians may experience a phenomenon known as developmental plasticity which causes them to alter the trajectory of their development in the presence of a stressor, for example by accelerating development when conditions in the larval environment are stressful. After a stressor is alleviated, the tadpole may experience a period of compensatory growth allowing them to accelerate their growth in order to "catch-up" in size. Such a rapid period of growth is likely to come at some cost to the tadpoles, specifically involving the link between tadpole behavior and their ability to experience compensatory growth. Both compensatory growth, developmental plasticity, and behavior, as well as their links to one another, are poorly understood in amphibians, particularly in relation to salinity stress. In this study, we will expose tadpoles to elevated salinity for different portions of development in order to monitor the effects on size, developmental stage, and behavior before, during, and after the exposure. This experiment will lead to a better understanding of compensatory growth and developmental plasticity in amphibians as well as the consequences of salinity stress on amphibian development and behavior and the risks of freshwater salinization.