PARENT SESSION
Thursday, August 10, 5:00-6:30 pm
Poster Session 24 - Modeling, statistics, and spatial analysis
Exhibit Hall, Ballroom Level, Cook Convention Center
Understanding the thermal consequences of climate change: a mechanistic approach.
Gilman, Sarah*,1, Helmuth, Brian2, Wethey, David2, 1 University of Washington, Friday Harbor, WA2 University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
ABSTRACT- Temperature changes associated with global climate change are expected to broadly affect species and communities. Accurate predictions of these effects are significantly hampered by a poor understanding of organismal body temperatures in nature. We have developed biophysical models to estimate the body temperatures of intertidal mussels and barnacles. The models use a combination of ground- and satellite-based meterological data, in conjunction with tidal information, to predict organismal body temperatures. They allow comparison of thermal environments over spatial scales of a few centimeters to 100's of kilometers and temporal scales of minutes to years. Model predictions are typically accurate to within 2°C of field observations. We applied the model to two case studies. First, we explored the sensitivity of mussel (Mytilus californianus) body temperatures to future changes in air and water temperature. We found that the magnitude of body temperature change varied geographically and was always less than the magnitude of environmental temperature change. Second, we used historical climate data to examine the role of temperature change in the geographic range contraction of an intertidal barnacle (Semibalanus balanoides) in the eastern Atlantic. Our results suggest that thermal limitation of reproduction may be responsible for the range contraction. Together these example demonstrate the power of mechanistic studies of the thermal consequences of climate change.
Key words: biophysical model, climate change, intertidal