Project: Collaborative Research: Tradeoffs between phenology and geography constraints in response to climate change across species life cycles

NSF abstract:
The investigators are using statistical and biophysical modeling techniques to examine the characteristics and drivers of timing (phenology) and distribution (geography) of fish eggs, larvae, and juveniles. They are focusing on the California Current and western Gulf of Alaska regions of the Northeast Pacific. Changes in phenology and geography are anticipated responses of marine organisms to global change in climate, with consequences for food web interactions, species abundance and productivity, and local extinctions. These responses, in turn, will have important implications for marine conservation, resource management, and the economies of coastal communities that depend on marine resources for sustenance and livelihoods. Data analysis is in collaboration with fisheries scientists at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and results will be of interest to resource managers. One of the investigators is an early-career female scientist, and the study provides training for REU students, other undergraduates, graduate students, and a postdoctoral scientist. Educational outreach includes development of online classroom and lab modules.

The overarching objective of this project is to examine the drivers and characteristics of phenology and geography of fish early life history stages (ELS) in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. Most research on how climate change impacts marine organisms has focused on adult life history stages, even though existing literature indicates that early life history stages may be more vulnerable to climate stressors. During ELS, marine fish and invertebrates can be limited in their ability to move in space and time due to strong ecological, physiological, physical, and evolutionary constraints. For these species, their ability to adapt to global change in climate through shifts in distribution and phenology depends on the events that occur during the early portion of their life cycle. Similarly, climate change impacts on organismal distribution and phenology have principally been studied separately, without any consideration of interactions between these two types of responses to changing oceanic conditions. The investigators are conducting modeling analyses based on ELS collected since the mid-1950s to test the null hypotheses that: 1) fish ELS will experience similar spatio-temporal variability in relation to ocean climate regardless of the life history strategy; 2) changes will be greater at the leading edge of a species' distribution and that the start of the spawning season will exhibit the greatest change in phenology; 3) species with large distribution changes will have smaller changes in phenology, and vice versa; and 4) historical and future projections of fish distribution that include life history information will be more skillful than those that do not include life history.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.