Resistance of Antarctic marine species to predicted freshening and lower salinity in the Southern Ocean

The project will assess the salinity tolerances and ability to acclimatise to lowered salinity in a range of Antarctic marine invertebrates. It will also assess the impacts of multiple stressors (at least elevated temperature and lowered salinity). The aim is to provide a much better set of predictions about what types of species (in relation to taxonomic identities and ecological and functional roles) are more and less resistant to future predicted environmental changes in Antarctic coastal ecosystems. The project will be primarily experimental assessing tolerances of species in the laboratory to both survival limits and sublethal responses. This will involve the use of morphological, physiological and genomic methods to evaluate capacities to respond to the environmental insult. Experiments will primarily be set in the cold-water marine aquarium in the British Antarctic Survey on animals routinely returned to UK from their Rothera station in Antarctica.