DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The role of individual variation on predator-prey interactions and its joint effect with environmental temperature

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One important goal of ecology is to understand how characteristics, such as body dimensions and weight, among many others, affect the way species interact with their environment and how they survive and reproduce. To do so, ecologists have long measured average characteristics across the individuals of a given species. However, mounting mathematical evidence suggests that averages can be misleading, because much information is lost regarding how, and by how much, individuals differ in their characteristics. These differences may in turn be crucial to our understanding of whether species can survive in nature, but more importantly, taking these differences between individuals into account may be paramount to make accurate predictions about how populations will respond to environmental change. This research will test these ideas using both mathematical models and experiments. By quantifying the effects of individual variation on a critical process in different environments, the research will promote the advancement of science, support science education and diversity, and enhance broader understanding of science Despite theoretical predictions, whether variation actually has detectable effects upon ecological dynamics, and whether this effect interacts with other important drivers such as environmental temperature, is largely unknown. This project will quantify the joint effect of individual phenotypic variation and temperature on foraging rates using an integrative approach that merges mathematical models and microcosm experiments. Foraging rates of a small copepod, wherein body size affects predatory activity, on a protist will be quantified for different temperatures. These results will clarify how this largely overlooked aspect of every population may help to predict ecological changes with greater precision, informing decisions about how to respond to climate change. Broader impacts will include enhancement of science education by involving undergraduate students from underrepresented groups and minorities in experimental and theoretical approaches to ecology and through outreach activities on the predator-prey dynamics to be run in the "Science with a Scientist" childrens outreach event at the University of Nebraska Museum of Natural History that involves radio controlled robots as predators and prey.