Global change is threathening coastal marine ecosystems, with potential severe impacts on nutrient shifts and food supply through the marine foodweb. This research proposal will study the effects of global change on primary consumers, i.e. marine copepods, and the potential consequences on food supply. It will focus on the fatty acids profile, as a proxy for food quality, under short- and long-term scenario's of global change. Long-term exposure to global change stressors may lead to multigenerational effects and transgeneration plasticity through interactions between the fatty acid metabolism and DNA methylation. The current proposal aims to unravel these potential links and improve our understanding on the interactions between fatty acids, DNA methylation and global change. It will focus on both pelagic and benthic species to understand whether intrinstic and ecological species characteristrics may play a crucial role in environmental stress response. Overall, the proposed project will lead to new and innovative insights by combining food web ecology, stress ecology, biochemical profiling and epigenetics allows an integrated approach to understand ecosystem functioning