How does environmental complexity shape physiology?

PhD research

Intertidal organisms have to tolerate the fluctuation of many environmental variables on a daily basis due to the ebb and flow of the tide. Because of this dynamic, intertidal organisms have been identified as potentially some of the most vulnerable organisms to climate change. 

Our understanding of how organisms respond to climate change is largely based on acute exposure to a single environmental variable in an otherwise constant environment. My PhD research used an Arduino controlled experimental system to investigate how multiple aspects (thermal predictability, habitat type, food availability) of an organism's environment can interact to shape physiological performance to both acute (e.g a hot day) and more chronic (e.g a heatwave) thermal stress events. I found that the way in which thermal predictability, habitat type and food availability interacted to influence performance depended on the severity of thermal stress (extreme vs sublethal) and the temporal scale of thermal stress (over hours vs over days).

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