Using amphipods as model species graduate student Mike Collins (with Dr Manuela Truebano, Professor John Spicer, and Dr Melody Clark [British Antarctic Survey]) is investigating how multiple climate change drivers, such as ocean warming and ocean hypoxia, affect their ecophysiology.
Concentrating on how exposure to both hypoxia and elevated temperatures (singly and in combination) determine the respiratory biology, and responses at the level of the transcriptome, of these ubiquitous animals, Mike is probing our understanding of aspects of a hypothesis that puts oxygen restriction at the heart of an aquatic animals response to future elevated temperatures.
Funded by a NERC CASS award Professor John Spicer (together with Dr Simon Morley [British Antarctic Survey] will extend this work with Antarctic amphipods. In a related project funded by a grant from the Swedish Royal Academy Professor John Spicer (in collaboration with Dr Sanna Eriksson, Kristineberg Marine Research Station and University of Gothenberg, Sweden) is investigating how altered temperature and oxygen affects the cardiovascular performance and the timing of hatching in European and Norwegian lobsters professorial.
This research enhances our understanding of how this commercially important species will respond to future climate change and what impacts this may have on future fisheries and ecosystems.
