Mary I. O'Connor

Temperature control of larval dispersal and the implications for marine ecology, evolution, and conservation.

Temperature controls the rate of fundamental biochemical processes and thereby regulates organismal attributes including development rate and survival. The increase in metabolic rate with temperature explains substantial among-species variation in life-history traits, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes. Temperature can also cause variability in metabolic rate within species. Here, we compare the effect of temperature on a key component of marine life cycles among a geographically and taxonomically diverse group of marine fish and invertebrates. Although innumerable lab studies document the negative effect of temperature on larval development time, little is known about the generality versus taxon-dependence of this relationship. We present a unified, parameterized model for the temperature dependence of larval development in marine animals. Because the duration of the larval period is known to influence larval dispersal distance and survival, changes in ocean temperature could have a direct and predictable influence on population connectivity, community structure, and regional-to-global scale patterns of biodiversity.

Sustainability and Global Seafood

Tight coupling to ecosystems and dependence on common-pool resources threaten fisheries and aquaculture. Although seafood is the most highly traded food internationally, it is an often overlooked component of global food security. It provides essential local food, livelihoods, and export earnings. Although global capture fisheries production is unlikely to increase, aquaculture is growing considerably. Sustaining seafoods contributions to food security hinges on the ability of institutions, particularly in developing countries, to protect and improve ecosystem health in the face of increasing pressures from international trade.

Warming and Resource Availability Shift Food Web Structure and Metabolism

Experimental warming of a marine food web suggests that ocean warming can lead to greater consumer abundance but reduced overall biomass, providing a potentially species-independent response to environmental warming.

Warming strengthens an herbivore-plant interaction

Temperature has strong, predictable effects on metabolism. Through this mechanism, environmental temperature affects individuals and populations of poikilotherms by determining rates of resource use, growth, reproduction, and mortality. Predictable variation in metabolic processes such as growth and reproduction could affect the strength of species interactions, but the community-level consequences of metabolic temperature dependence are virtually unexplored. I experimentally tested the hypothesis that plant-herbivore interaction strength increases with temperature using a common species of marine macroalga (Sargassum filipendula) and the grazing amphipod Ampithoe longimana. Increasing temperature increased per capita interaction strength in two independent experiments and reversed a positive effect of temperature on plant growth. Temperature did not alter palatability of plant tissue to herbivores or average herbivore feeding rate. A predictable effect of temperature on herbivore-plant interaction strength could provide key information toward understanding local food web responses to changing temperatures at different spatial and temporal scales. Efforts to extend the effects of physiological mechanisms to larger scale patterns, including projections of the ecological effects of climate change, must be expanded to include the effects of changing conditions on trophic interactions.