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Foulk A, Gouhier T, Choi F, Torossian JL, Matzelle A, Sittenfeld D, Helmuth B. Physiologically informed organismal climatologies reveal unexpected spatiotemporal trends in temperature. CONSERVATION PHYSIOLOGY 2024; 12:coae025. [PMID: 38779431 PMCID: PMC11109819 DOI: 10.1093/conphys/coae025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2023] [Revised: 03/15/2024] [Accepted: 04/15/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Abstract
Body temperature is universally recognized as a dominant driver of biological performance. Although the critical distinction between the temperature of an organism and its surrounding habitat has long been recognized, it remains common practice to assume that trends in air temperature-collected via remote sensing or weather stations-are diagnostic of trends in animal temperature and thus of spatiotemporal patterns of physiological stress and mortality risk. Here, by analysing long-term trends recorded by biomimetic temperature sensors designed to emulate intertidal mussel temperature across the US Pacific Coast, we show that trends in maximal organismal temperature ('organismal climatologies') during aerial exposure can differ substantially from those exhibited by co-located environmental data products. Specifically, using linear regression to compare maximal organismal and environmental (air temperature) climatologies, we show that not only are the magnitudes of body and air temperature markedly different, as expected, but so are their temporal trends at both local and biogeographic scales, with some sites showing significant decadal-scale increases in organismal temperature despite reductions in air temperature, or vice versa. The idiosyncratic relationship between the spatiotemporal patterns of organismal and air temperatures suggests that environmental climatology cannot be statistically corrected to serve as an accurate proxy for organismal climatology. Finally, using quantile regression, we show that spatiotemporal trends vary across the distribution of organismal temperature, with extremes shifting in different directions and at different rates than average metrics. Overall, our results highlight the importance of quantifying changes in the entire distribution of temperature to better predict biological performance and dispel the notion that raw or 'corrected' environmental (and specially air temperature) climatologies can be used to predict organismal temperature trends. Hence, despite their widespread coverage and availability, the severe limitations of environmental climatologies suggest that their role in conservation and management policy should be carefully considered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aubrey Foulk
- Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, Nahant, MA 01908, USA
| | - Tarik Gouhier
- Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, Nahant, MA 01908, USA
| | - Francis Choi
- Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, Nahant, MA 01908, USA
| | - Jessica L Torossian
- Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, Nahant, MA 01908, USA
- Volpe Center, U.S. Department of Transportation, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Allison Matzelle
- Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, Nahant, MA 01908, USA
| | - David Sittenfeld
- Center for the Environment, Museum of Science, Boston, MA 02114, USA
- School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Brian Helmuth
- Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, Nahant, MA 01908, USA
- School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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Choi F, Gouhier T, Lima F, Rilov G, Seabra R, Helmuth B. Mapping physiology: biophysical mechanisms define scales of climate change impacts. CONSERVATION PHYSIOLOGY 2019; 7:coz028. [PMID: 31423312 PMCID: PMC6691486 DOI: 10.1093/conphys/coz028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2019] [Revised: 04/24/2019] [Accepted: 05/07/2019] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
The rocky intertidal zone is a highly dynamic and thermally variable ecosystem, where the combined influences of solar radiation, air temperature and topography can lead to differences greater than 15°C over the scale of centimetres during aerial exposure at low tide. For most intertidal organisms this small-scale heterogeneity in microclimates can have enormous influences on survival and physiological performance. However, the potential ecological importance of environmental heterogeneity in determining ecological responses to climate change remains poorly understood. We present a novel framework for generating spatially explicit models of microclimate heterogeneity and patterns of thermal physiology among interacting organisms. We used drone photogrammetry to create a topographic map (digital elevation model) at a resolution of 2 × 2 cm from an intertidal site in Massachusetts, which was then fed into to a model of incident solar radiation based on sky view factor and solar position. These data were in turn used to drive a heat budget model that estimated hourly surface temperatures over the course of a year (2017). Body temperature layers were then converted to thermal performance layers for organisms, using thermal performance curves, creating 'physiological landscapes' that display spatially and temporally explicit patterns of 'microrefugia'. Our framework shows how non-linear interactions between these layers lead to predictions about organismal performance and survivorship that are distinct from those made using any individual layer (e.g. topography, temperature) alone. We propose a new metric for quantifying the 'thermal roughness' of a site (RqT, the root mean square of spatial deviations in temperature), which can be used to quantify spatial and temporal variability in temperature and performance at the site level. These methods facilitate an exploration of the role of micro-topographic variability in driving organismal vulnerability to environmental change using both spatially explicit and frequency-based approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francis Choi
- Marine Science Center, Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Rd, Nahant, MA, USA
| | - Tarik Gouhier
- Marine Science Center, Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Rd, Nahant, MA, USA
| | - Fernando Lima
- CIBIO, Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, University of Porto, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal
| | - Gil Rilov
- National Institute of Oceanography, Israel Oceanography and Limnology Research Institute, Haifa, Israel
| | - Rui Seabra
- CIBIO, Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, University of Porto, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal
| | - Brian Helmuth
- Marine Science Center, Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Rd, Nahant, MA, USA
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Adaptive marine conservation planning in the face of climate change: What can we learn from physiological, ecological and genetic studies? Glob Ecol Conserv 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00566] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
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Judge R, Choi F, Helmuth B. Recent Advances in Data Logging for Intertidal Ecology. Front Ecol Evol 2018. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2018.00213] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
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Pido: Predictive Delay Optimization for Intertidal Wireless Sensor Networks. SENSORS 2018; 18:s18051464. [PMID: 29738467 PMCID: PMC5982849 DOI: 10.3390/s18051464] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2018] [Revised: 05/05/2018] [Accepted: 05/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Intertidal habitats are among the harshest environments on the planet, and have emerged as a model system for exploring the ecological impacts of global climate change. Deploying reliable instrumentation to measure environmental conditions such as temperature is challenging in this environment. The application of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) shows considerable promise as a means of optimizing continuous data collection, but poor link quality and unstable connections between nodes, caused by harsh physical environmental conditions, bring about a delay problem. In this paper, we model and analyze the components of delays in an intertidal wireless sensor network system (IT-WSN). We show that, by properly selecting routing pathways, it is feasible to improve delay. To this end, we propose a Predictive Delay Optimization (Pido) framework, which provides a new metric for routing path selection. Pido incorporates delay introduced by both link quality and node conditions, and designs a classifier to predict future conditions of nodes, i.e., the likely time of aerial exposure at low tide in this case. We evaluate the performance of Pido in both a real IT-WSN system and a large-scale simulation, the result demonstrates that Pido decreases up to 73% of delays on average with limited overhead.
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Connon RE, Jeffries KM, Komoroske LM, Todgham AE, Fangue NA. The utility of transcriptomics in fish conservation. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2018; 221:221/2/jeb148833. [PMID: 29378879 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.148833] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
There is growing recognition of the need to understand the mechanisms underlying organismal resilience (i.e. tolerance, acclimatization) to environmental change to support the conservation management of sensitive and economically important species. Here, we discuss how functional genomics can be used in conservation biology to provide a cellular-level understanding of organismal responses to environmental conditions. In particular, the integration of transcriptomics with physiological and ecological research is increasingly playing an important role in identifying functional physiological thresholds predictive of compensatory responses and detrimental outcomes, transforming the way we can study issues in conservation biology. Notably, with technological advances in RNA sequencing, transcriptome-wide approaches can now be applied to species where no prior genomic sequence information is available to develop species-specific tools and investigate sublethal impacts that can contribute to population declines over generations and undermine prospects for long-term conservation success. Here, we examine the use of transcriptomics as a means of determining organismal responses to environmental stressors and use key study examples of conservation concern in fishes to highlight the added value of transcriptome-wide data to the identification of functional response pathways. Finally, we discuss the gaps between the core science and policy frameworks and how thresholds identified through transcriptomic evaluations provide evidence that can be more readily used by resource managers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Richard E Connon
- Department of Anatomy, Physiology & Cell Biology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Ken M Jeffries
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, 50 Sifton Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2
| | - Lisa M Komoroske
- Marine Mammal and Turtle Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.,Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
| | - Anne E Todgham
- Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Nann A Fangue
- Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA
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Riddell EA, McPhail J, Damm JD, Sears MW. Trade‐offs between water loss and gas exchange influence habitat suitability of a woodland salamander. Funct Ecol 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Eric A. Riddell
- Department of Biological Sciences Clemson University Clemson SC USA
| | - Jared McPhail
- Department of Biological Sciences Clemson University Clemson SC USA
- Carnegie Melon University Pittsburgh PA USA
| | - Jason D. Damm
- Department of Biological Sciences Clemson University Clemson SC USA
| | - Michael W. Sears
- Department of Biological Sciences Clemson University Clemson SC USA
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Tomlinson S, Rummer JL, Hultine KR, Cooke SJ. Crossing boundaries in conservation physiology. CONSERVATION PHYSIOLOGY 2018; 6:coy015. [PMID: 29593872 PMCID: PMC5865528 DOI: 10.1093/conphys/coy015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2018] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Sean Tomlinson
- School of Molecular & Life Sciences, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley Western Australia 6102, Australia
- Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions, Kings Park Science, Kattij Place, Kings Park, Western Australia 6005, Australia
- Corresponding author: Tel: +61 894803923.
| | - Jodie L Rummer
- Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, 1 James Cook Dr, Douglas Queensland 4811, Australia
| | - Kevin R Hultine
- Department of Research, Conservation and Collections, Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 N Galvin Pkwy, Phoenix, AZ 85008, USA
| | - Steven J Cooke
- Department of Biology and Institute of Environmental Science, Canadian Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation and Environmental Management, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Dr, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6
- Department of Biology, Fish Ecology and Q2 Conservation Physiology Laboratory, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Dr, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6
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Tomlinson S. Down the rabbit hole: how complex do eco-physiological models need to be? CONSERVATION PHYSIOLOGY 2017; 5:cox015. [PMID: 28852512 PMCID: PMC5570124 DOI: 10.1093/conphys/cox015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2017] [Accepted: 01/30/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Sean Tomlinson
- Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia
- Science Directorate, Kings Park and Botanic Gardens, West Perth, WA 6005, Australia
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