2020 ESA Annual Meeting (August 3 - 6)

OOS 69 Abstract - Can and should physiology be incorporated in ecological forecasts?

Tuesday, August 4, 2020: 4:45 PM
Lauren Buckley, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Background/Question/Methods

Common forecasting approaches often fail to predict what appear to be individualistic responses to climate change. Accounting for physiology and other aspects of organismal biology may account for the variable responses, but how can we tractably incorporate organismal biology in general models? Challenges include generalizing how physiological mechanisms mediate responses to spatial and temporal environmental variation and assembling the required physiological data.

Results/Conclusions

We summarize insight from montane insect resurvey projects, which highlight how phenotypes that influence physiology shape ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental variation. We introduce the TrenchR package, which facilitates microclimate modeling to translate weather station data into the environmental conditions experienced by organisms and biophysical modeling to predict organismal body temperatures given the environmental conditions. Finally, we discuss paths toward better accounting for physiological mechanisms in ecological forecasting.