Biodiversity Research Seminar Series (BRS)
BRS David Anderson: Connecting temperature effects across levels of biological organization
September 25, 2024, 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
A recording of this presentation is below and will be available for one year:
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Title: Connecting temperature effects across levels of biological organization
David Anderson
Postdoctoral Researcher, O’Connor lab
Abstract: Changing patterns of temperature variation are altering traits of organisms, populations, and communities. Yet, we often lack empirically grounded theory that connects changes in traits or processes at one level of organization to the structure and functioning of higher or lower levels. In this seminar, I will present three studies examining how temperature effects span levels of biological organization. First, I will show how temperature-dependent shifts in population recruitment alters the optimal investment in egg size of teleost fishes. Second, I will describe work showing how temperature-driven changes in intracellular nutrient density creates general patterns of phenotypic memory (i.e., effects of past thermal exposure on current growth) in phytoplankton population growth. Finally, I will show how temperature-dependent changes in trophic interactions affects the evolutionarily optimal cell size and stoichiometry of phytoplankton. This body of work demonstrates the importance of theory spanning organizational levels for understanding biotic responses to temperature change.