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）生活在沿着大多数海岸线的高潮和低潮区域之间，必须交替地与水生和陆地环境竞争。 与哺乳动物不同，潮间带动物对体温的生理控制很少。 因此，它们的温度由周围环境的特征驱动，并且可以非常迅速地变化。 在涨潮时，当动物在水下时，它的体温很快就与周围的水温相平衡。 相反，当潮汐较低，生物暴露在空气中时，其温度受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的温度高得多，使得空气温度不能很好地预测体温。 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，云层覆盖和太阳加热。 几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，这可能对近岸环境的生产力产生级联效应。 令人惊讶的是，虽然许多研究都监测了水温，但直到最近我们才开始探索低潮期间动物的温度。 因此，PI在将生物生理学研究与潮间带种群和群落的生态学联系起来方面受到严重限制。 也许更重要的是，PI目前没有办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温度，从而预测低潮期间具有重要生态意义的潮间带动物（贻贝）的热应力水平。 它还将探索从北方华盛顿到加州南部的热应力的地理模式。由于低潮的时间随地点和一年中的时间而变化，体温的地理模式可能是复杂的。 例如，虽然华盛顿州部分地区的夏季低潮经常发生在一天中最热的部分，但加州中部的低潮往往发生在早上早些时候，当时条件较冷。 因此，北方地区的动物实际上可能比南方地区的动物经历更热的体温。 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.