Join us for a GSO Bio at Noon seminar by Dr. Coleen Suckling (URI), titled “A slow growing perspective on multi-generational responses to future change.”

Abstract: Our oceans are changing, becoming increasingly undersaturated with respect to carbonates as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase. Predicting how organisms will respond to these changes has become a major area of research, particularly for those species needing to maintain homeostatic and biomineralizing processes. In recent years there has been a shift in focus from shorter (hours-weeks) towards assessing responses over longer term exposure periods (months-years) advancing our understanding in this field. Given that predicted changes span across years and decades, and that organisms will be producing offspring, a greater consideration for even longer time scales (multiple years) and multi-generational responses are needed to better understand how organisms will respond under future climates. For many species, this is still in its infancy with the majority of focus using short time scales or on organisms with rapid life cycles. In an experimental context this is convenient as numerous generations can be achieved within weeks/months. However, they cannot be a substitute for higher trophic level organisms that have much more complex life cycles, developmental and physiological processes. High trophic levels typically comprise of slower growing organisms with longer life cycles and deferred maturity (i.e. years). With these, rearing multiple generations becomes time-consuming, difficult and almost unfundable within normal grant time-scales (i.e. 3 years). This presentation will address this knowledge gap by discussing the responses of a slow growing benthic invertebrate, the European Green Sea Urchin (Psammechinus miliaris), bred across several generations under IPCC predicted CO2 conditions. This sea urchin species currently has a low level of commercial interest within Europe, but our results indicate that this could change!