Location	Funding	Institution	Principal Investigator(s)
Hawaii	$100,000	University of Hawaii at Manoa and Oceanic Institute of HPU	Yanghua He, PhD, Mi-Jeong Lee, PhD, and Dustin Moss, PhD

Overall Goals
To address challenges faced by Hawaii’s shrimp broodstock producers during the international transportation of Pacific White Shrimps (Litopenaeus vannamei) and mitigate the adverse effects of rising ocean temperatures. The project’s core objective is to comprehensively investigate the impact of heat stress on shrimp growth, oil production, physiological responses, and genetic changes under varying heat stress conditions and recovery phases. The ultimate goal is to identify heat stress indicators and genetic markers related to thermal tolerance. Additionally, we seek to examine if these phenotypic and genotypic alterations caused by heat stress can be reversed upon stress removal. These findings will significantly contribute to the selection and breeding of resilient Pacific White Shrimp, emphasizing high-quality meat and oil production to combat global warming challenges.

Objectives
1. Assessing Phenotypic Effects of Heat Stress.
2. Assessing Disturbance of cfDNA and cfDNA Methylation due to Heat Stress.
3. Investigating Gene Expression Changes Under Heat Stress.
4. Identifying Thermal-linked Biomarkers.