Award: OCE-1851489

This project studied how species respond to fluctuating chages in environmental conditions. For example, if ongoing climate change extends the growing season of through species responses to warming water temperatures, how will species respond? One might expect that all species will shift their reproductive seasons earlier in the year, for example. We used a combination of mathematical modeling of life history evolution, and a combination of field sampling of shoreline animal life histories across different environmental regimes, and laboratory experiments varying environmental fluctuations to test model predictions. Unexpectedly, species can exhibit different resposes to the same environmental change (for example some advance breeding whereas others delay breeding), with the response depending on how differents parts of a life history trade off with each other (for example, high breeding output may cause lower adult survival). Our laboratory experiments and modeling also revealed that different regimes of environmental variation can shift the amount of variation observed in life histories among individuals, which affects the ability of populations to adapt in the long-term to a changing environment. Other modeling studies clarified the conditions under which species undergo explosive bouts of reproduction--when locally higher densities of species overwhelm natural enemies, for example, and conversely, when negative interactions, such as promoting the local populations of natural enemies coupled with limited dispersal cap the success of a species, allowing other species to coexist in a region. FInally, the project facilitated data collection in a project exploring genomic and transcriptomic responses of mussels to varying regimes of environmental stress. The project has broader societal impacts in several ways. First, it improves our ability to anticipate how species will respond to the ongoing change in climate and related environmental conditions to elevated release of CO2 into the environment by humans. Seond, it expanded TEM-relevant training across a spectrum of society. The project directly supported the PhD work of three graduate students, including a US Navy veteran through a GEOVETS supplement. Beyond this direct support, the project also facilitated the PhD programs of seven other PhD students by providing logistid support, such as boat transportation to the field site, that allowed them to develop and carry out their research. Some of these projects ijncluded studies of how microbes and kelps form partnerships that control nutrients and energy flow in coastal systems, how coastal sysetms recover following disturbance events, and how collections of species respond to chagnes along environmental gradients. The project also provided logistical support for four University of Chicago undergraduate students carrying out senior theses, including characterizing the effects of microbiomes in surfgrass roots, documenting shifts in sea anemone symbioses under environmental stress, and searching for indicators of abrupt flips in ecosystem states as the environment gradually changes. Finally, the project provided direct support and research exposure to 13 high school students from an underserved community for STEM education, the Makah Tribe, whichs owns the main study site of the project,, through the Makah Fisheries Internship Program. A number of these participants have enrolled, or will enroll, in college, thereby expanding the scientific work force to under-represented native American groups. As part of the project activities, we also interacted extensively with Makah tribal members and scientific staff within tribal government to disseminate marine ecological knowledge more broadly to practitioners with direct involvement in more applied management problems. Last Modified: 06/21/2023 Submitted by: John T Wootton