CAREER: Environmental Drivers of Life History Variation in Coastal Ecosystems

Colgate University, Hamilton NY

Investigators

Abstract

Differences in the availability of resources among regions and over time are expected to lead to differences in life history traits in animal populations. While life history variation has been investigated using experimental approaches, it is poorly understood in natural systems. This study will investigate the relationships between resource availability and the egg size of bivalve molluscs in modern coastal ecosystems. The PI will compare modern populations with historical populations to determine the rates at which populations have responded to changes in resource availability. In addition, this study aims to increase the diversity of students participating in Earth and ocean sciences through the development of a pipeline for underrepresented minority undergraduates at Franklin and Marshall College that involves early engagement in field and laboratory research and an interdisciplinary outreach program involving junior high school students and teachers in the Gulf Coast. This study will involve successive years of sampling contemporary and historical bivalve populations along a primary production gradient in the northern Gulf of Mexico with teams of undergraduate students. Isotopic analyses of mollusk shells from contemporary populations in coastal Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida will be used to calibrate the relationships between present-day primary production, sea surface temperature, and larval traits. Contemporary relationships between environmental conditions and life history will be used to investigate environmental correlates of life history variation in the northern Gulf of Mexico over past millennia. This study also will work with existing museum collections to examine the associations between life history traits and environmental gradients over broader spatial scales. This study will include an integrated outreach program in coastal Alabama and Louisiana that engages junior high school students and teachers in reconstructing human-environmental history through the visual arts and the historical lens provided by shells radiocarbon-dated as a part of the planned research activities. Results will be disseminated through conference presentations by undergraduate researchers and the PI, publications, public databases, and exhibition of pre-college student environmental artwork at collaborating Gulf Coast marine labs and other public venues. 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.