Using individual metabolism and body size to predict climate warming impacts on aquatic food webs
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Life Sciences
Abstract
This is a joint submission. Please see the main grant with PI Guy Woodward of Queen Mary University of London.
Organisations
Publications
Yvon-Durocher G
(2011)
Across ecosystem comparisons of size structure: methods, approaches and prospects
in Oikos
Woodward G
(2012)
Climate change impacts in multispecies systems: drought alters food web size structure in a field experiment.
in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Sutherland W
(2012)
Identification of 100 fundamental ecological questions
in Journal of Ecology
Signorile A
(2016)
Mixture or mosaic? Genetic patterns in UK grey squirrels support a human-mediated 'long-jump' invasion mechanism
in Diversity and Distributions
Signorile A
(2014)
Do founder size, genetic diversity and structure influence rates of expansion of North American grey squirrels in Europe?
in Diversity and Distributions
Signorile A
(2014)
Grey squirrels in central Italy: a new threat for endemic red squirrel subspecies
in Biological Invasions
Signorile A
(2016)
Using DNA profiling to investigate human-mediated translocations of an invasive species
in Biological Conservation
Sheppard L
(2015)
Changes in large-scale climate alter spatial synchrony of aphid pests
in Nature Climate Change
Reuman DC
(2014)
A metabolic perspective on competition and body size reductions with warming.
in The Journal of animal ecology
Reuman DC
(2014)
The marine diversity spectrum.
in The Journal of animal ecology
Description | Some important findings so far include showing for the first time that competition can be an important factor in body-size reductions widely observed in ectotherms under warming. For phytoplankton, cells are expected, based on our work, to have an accentuated competitive advantage for nutrient uptake and rapid growth in warmer waters. The same may be true of other ectotherms. Although this is the case generally, it is not always true, and exceptions in the study system may further clarify mechanisms. |
Exploitation Route | As we work to continue to clarify mechanisms we will want to understand in what contexts we may expect smaller body sizes of single-cell producers and other ectotherms in aquatic environments. This is important because fisheries are based, ultimately, on this kind of production, eaten by zooplankton and then transported up through the food chain. The research is basic science, and is useful in that it helps us understand the reasons for one of the major biotic responses to climate change. |
Sectors | Environment |
URL | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12064/full |
Title | "cheddar" software package for the R programming language |
Description | A package of software tools for manipulating certain kinds of food web data, now on the Comprehensive R Archive Network |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2013 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | At least five papers in prep or in press so far have used the package for their analysis |
URL | http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/cheddar/index.html |
Title | The relationship between body mass and field metabolic rate among individual birds and mammals |
Description | The online supplement to this paper contains the complete dataset used, which is the biggest ever dataset assembled on metabolic rates and body sizes of individual birds and mammals. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2013 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The data are available to be used in future research. |
URL | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12086/suppinfo |
Title | diatom data |
Description | Body sizes of diatoms in icelandic streams across a temperature gradient |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2013 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The database is available to other researchers |
URL | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12285/suppinfo |
Title | Cheddar ? analysis and visualization of ecological communities in R |
Description | A software package submitted to the Comprehensive R Archive Network and described in a publication. Very useful for the work. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Impact | Publication date is an estimate of completion or near completion, since the software has been available open source through a large part of its development. |