May 3, 2023

12:00 pm 1100 TLSB

Karen Mabry
New Mexico State University

" Species-specific responses to experimental warming during development "

The effects of climate change on plants and animals are pervasive. Climate change is expected to increase the thermal variation experienced by organisms, in addition to an overall increase in mean temperature. Because their body temperatures are heavily influenced by environmental temperatures, ectotherms are expected to be highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We conducted a series of experiments investigating these effects on dragonflies, in which we manipulated both mean developmental temperatures and variation around those means in an aquatic mesocosm array. We determined the effects of thermal manipulations on survival, flight-related morphology, behavior, and community composition. Across experiments and as expected, emergence phenology was consistently advanced in warmed versus ambient temperature treatments. However, other responses were less predictable, and suggest that the effects of increased temperatures and increased thermal variability on these animals are complex.

Host: Noa Pinter-Wollman