Physical Ecology of the Rocky Intertidal: Predicting Patterns in Invertebrate Body Temperatures

潮间带动物(如藤壶、贻贝和牡蛎等生物)生活在世界大部分海岸线的涨潮区和低潮区之间，必须交替与水生和陆地环境作斗争。与哺乳动物不同，潮间带动物通常对其体温几乎没有生理控制。因此，它们的温度受周围环境特征的影响，变化非常迅速。在涨潮期间，当动物在水下时，它的体温很快就会与周围水温保持平衡。相比之下，当潮水退去，这种生物暴露在空气中时，它的温度受到各种气候因素的影响。由于来自太阳的热量，这些温度通常比空气温度高得多，这使得气温不能很好地预测人体温度。重要的是，这意味着为了准确预测体温，必须考虑各种气候因素，包括风速、气温、云量和来自太阳的加热。数十年的实验室研究表明，体温对潮间带动植物的生长、繁殖和生存有很强的影响，这可能会对近岸环境的生产力产生连锁影响。令人惊讶的是，虽然许多研究都监测了水温，但我们直到最近才开始探索退潮时动物的温度是什么。因此，PI在将生物生理学与潮间带种群和群落的生态学联系起来的研究方面受到严重限制。也许更重要的是，PIs目前无法衡量预测的气候变化对潮间带群落的潜在影响。利用一系列小型气象站和温度记录设备，这项研究将测试一个数学模型，该模型使用气候数据来预测退潮期间一种具有重要生态意义的潮间带动物(贻贝)的温度，从而预测热应激水平。它还将探索从华盛顿北部到加利福尼亚州南部地区热应力的地理模式。由于退潮的时间因地点和时间的不同而不同，体温的地理模式很可能是复杂的。例如，华盛顿州部分地区的夏季低潮通常发生在一天中最热的部分，而加利福尼亚州中部的夏季低潮往往发生在早上，那时天气较凉爽。因此，北部地区的动物实际上可能会经历比南部地区更热的体温。这项研究将为预测气候变化对潮间带群落的影响提供重要的一步，并将试图提供一种明确地将动物生理学研究与种群生态学研究联系起来的方法。

Intertidal animals (organisms such as barnacles, mussels and oysters) live between the regions of high and low tide along most of the world's coastlines, and must alternately contend with both the aquatic and terrestrial environments. Unlike mammals, intertidal animals often have very little physiological control over their body temperatures. As a result, their temperatures are driven by the characteristics of the surrounding environment, and can change very rapidly. During high tide, when the animal is underwater, its body temperature very rapidly equilibrates to the temperature of the surrounding water. In contrast, when the tide is low and the creature is exposed to air, its temperature is driven by a variety of climatic factors. Because of heating from the sun, these temperatures are often much higher than that of the air, making air temperature a poor predictor of body temperature. Importantly, this means that in order to accurately predict body temperatures, a variety of climatic factors must be considered, including wind speed, air temperature, cloud cover and heating from the sun. Decades of laboratory studies have shown very strong effects of body temperature on the growth, reproduction, and survival of intertidal animals and plants, which can potentially have cascading effects on the productivity of the nearshore environment. Surprisingly, while many studies have monitored water temperatures, only very recently have we begun to explore what animal temperatures are during low tide. As a result, the PIs are severely limited in connecting studies examining organismal physiology with the ecology of intertidal populations and communities. Perhaps more importantly, the PIs presently have no way of gauging the potential impact of forecasted climate changes on intertidal communities. Using a series of small weather stations and temperature recording devices, this study will test a mathematical model that uses climatic data to predict the temperatures, and thus the levels of thermal stress, of an ecologically important intertidal animal (the mussel) during low tide. It will also explore geographic patterns in thermal stress from sites ranging from northern Washington to southern California. Because the timing of low tide varies with location and time of year, geographic patterns in body temperatures are likely to be complex. For example, while summertime low tides in parts of Washington State often occur during the hottest parts of the day, those in Central California tend to occur earlier in the morning, when conditions are cooler. Therefore animals in northern regions may actually experience hotter body temperatures than those in southern regions. This study will provide an important step in predicting the effects of climate change on intertidal communities, and will attempt to provide a means of explicitly linking studies of animal physiology with those of population ecology.