Biophysical Ecology Research Articles

TrenchR: An R package for modular and accessible microclimate and biophysical ecology

Much understanding of organismal responses to climate change and variability relies on the assumption that body temperatures are equal to temporally averaged air temperatures high above the ground. However, most organisms experience microclimates near the ground and acute exposure to solar and thermal radiation and thermal extremes can substantially elevate or depress their body temperatures. We introduce the TrenchR package, which aids in Translating Environmental Change into organismal responses. The package includes microclimate models to vertically scale weather station data to organismal heights. Additional functions model and temporally partition air and soil temperatures and solar radiation. TrenchR biophysical modeling tools include both general models for heat flows and specific models to predict body temperatures for a variety of ectothermic taxa. We also offer utility functions to aid in estimating the organismal and environmental parameters needed for biophysical ecology. TrenchR focuses on simple and modular functions so users can create transparent and flexible models for biophysical applications. The package aims to introduce and enable microclimate and biophysical modeling to improve ecological and evolutionary forecasting. We further this aim through a series of educational modules that introduce the field of biophysical ecology.

Ecologies, One and All

AbstractThis essay considers ecology in its singular and plural forms. It asks whether and how the knowledge forms generated by practitioners of the singular science of ecology might weave more fully into a robust plural analytic that is grounded in the acknowledgment of multiple ways of knowing, experiencing, and attributing meaning to consequential connections between the human and the more-than-human world. Although Western science, with singular ecology as one of its many descendants, leaves an undeniable imprint, the essay aims to ask whether the contemporary, lived life of ecological science as postpositivist practice might be working in ways that, while imperfect, may be more legible and shared with scholars in the environmental humanities than is usually noted. It describes the knowledge base of the singular science of ecology, which in contemporary theory and practice consists of collections of disparate, complementary, or contradictory models—ecologies—in the plural, thus holding generality and infinite particularity in constant dialogue. The authors, two natural scientists and one social scientist, aim to provoke fresh discussions about the ways ecological analytics circulate in contemporary research and scholarly practice. The authors’ goal is to further the essential work of more direct and clear conversation, translation, and mutual learning between scholars in the environmental humanities and biophysical ecology. They hold this to be essential as transdisciplinary initiatives endeavor to study, and better understand, how social and environmental change coproduce one another.

Mechanistic forecasts of species responses to climate change: The promise of biophysical ecology.

A core challenge in global change biology is to predict how species will respond to future environmental change and to manage these responses. To make such predictions and management actions robust to novel futures, we need to accurately characterize how organisms experience their environments and the biological mechanisms by which they respond. All organisms are thermodynamically connected to their environments through the exchange of heat and water at fine spatial and temporal scales and this exchange can be captured with biophysical models. Although mechanistic models based on biophysical ecology have a long history of development and application, their use in global change biology remains limited despite their enormous promise and increasingly accessible software. We contend that greater understanding and training in the theory and methods of biophysical ecology is vital to expand their application. Our review shows how biophysical models can be implemented to understand and predict climate change impacts on species' behavior, phenology, survival, distribution, and abundance. It also illustrates the types of outputs that can be generated, and the data inputs required for different implementations. Examples range from simple calculations of body temperature at a particular site and time, to more complex analyses of species' distribution limits based on projected energy and water balances, accounting for behavior and phenology. We outline challenges that currently limit the widespread application of biophysical models relating to data availability, training, and the lack of common software ecosystems. We also discuss progress and future developments that could allow these models to be applied to many species across large spatial extents and timeframes. Finally, we highlight how biophysical models are uniquely suited to solve global change biology problems that involve predicting and interpreting responses to environmental variability and extremes, multiple or shifting constraints, and novel abiotic or biotic environments.

Toward pluralizing ecology: Finding common ground across sociocultural and scientific perspectives

AbstractEcologists increasingly work with people from other fields, in which scholars, practitioners, and activists often pluralize: “ecologies.” By contrast, biophysical ecologists use the singular. Specialists beyond ecological science may avoid the singular because it evokes environmental determinism, lack of human agency, and disrespect for ways of knowing beyond science. Some social analysts consider biophysical ecology itself to be but one way of knowing, which embodies social positioning and uneven power relations. For their part, ecologists often ignore discussions featuring the term “ecologies” as unrelated to their work. The authors—one anthropologist and two biophysical ecologists—wish to facilitate social–ecological interaction by evaluating the conceptual content of the plural versus singular contrast. We suggest there are fundamental differences between ecology in the singular and plural. We examine these differences by showing that the singular and the plural within ecological science differ in specificity versus generality. In the view of social critiques, however, the conflict reflects political power differentials and social position of science. We explore whether there are productive parallels between these contrasting implications of the singular versus plural. Social criticisms of singular ecology include lack of system openness, open‐ended dynamics, contingent pathways of change, and human agency in ecological processes. We find value in these critiques and have grappled with these issues ourselves. We find that contemporary ecology often employs concepts amenable to those in social critiques. This finding demonstrates why ecologists should not be so quick to dismiss plural ecology as a meaningful phrase. We show that concerns of the social critiques embodied in the plural term parallel ecology's use of (1) multiple models to understand a topic, (2) multifaceted, scalable concepts, and (3) nested dialog between generality and specificity. We conclude that the use of the plural and singular actually share a conceptual foundation that can facilitate interdisciplinary integration and scholarship. Furthermore, the emerging awareness by ecologists of the concerns about the politics of power in science and its use may improve the ability of ecologists not only to interact with social scientists but also to better engage with social movements and environmental justice.

Systems in Flames: Dynamic Coproduction of Social-Ecological Processes.

Ecologists who study human-dominated places have adopted a social–ecological systems framework to recognize the coproduced links between ecological and social processes. However, many social scientists are wary of the way ecologists use the systems concept to represent such links. This wariness is sometimes due to a misunderstanding of the contemporary use of the systems concept in ecology. We aim to overcome this misunderstanding by discussing the contemporary systems concept using refinements from biophysical ecology. These refinements allow the systems concept to be used as a bridge rather than a barrier to social–ecological interaction. We then use recent examples of extraordinary fire to illustrate the usefulness and flexibility of the concept for understanding the dynamism of fire as a social–ecological interaction. The systems idea is a useful interdisciplinary abstraction that can be contextualized to account for societally important problems and dynamics.

How Have the U.S. Coasts Changed (and How Are They Going to Change) as Cultural and Policy Spaces? An Example from California

Over the centuries, the coastal zones of the world have attracted agents of political expansion and instrumental maritime (e.g., fishing, shipping, boat building) industries seeking profit, and also great numbers of the general public seeking a place for residence, relaxation, outdoor recreation, tourism and other forms of play. The impressive amenities of the coastal zone are the economic value of natural resources and the social value of a sublime biophysical and human ecology. In the United States, the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 created a mandate for special area management plans to balance protection of the coasts with provisions that allow residence, visitation, and industry. This mandate is also found in the California Coastal Act of 1974 which created the California Coastal Commission. In the time since the passage of these acts, the cultural and policy spaces of California’s coast have changed dramatically. It is, however, an open question as to whether the Coastal Commission—and the many governmental entities with which it interacts—have succeeded or failed in their mandates. Whatever the conclusion drawn, this speculative essay suggests that climate change-induced future sea level rise will render the historic coastal management institutions and approaches obsolete. The future will be very different—ecologically, culturally, economically and politically. Coastal zone practitioners will be forced to reconfigure and expand their mandates and toolkit. We encourage a recognition that the challenge before them will be a new and very different one. It will call for an adaptation of the coastal management profession and the reorientation of the training and education of the next generation of coastal leaders in the public, private and civil society sectors. This should entail an expansion of disciplinary expertise to address human dimensions topics that include planned retreat, population and infrastructure relocation, social equity and environmental justice and be intimately informed by science and stakeholder engagement.

Where do functional traits come from? The role of theory and models

AbstractThe use of traits is growing in ecology and biodiversity informatics, with initiatives to collate trait data and integrate it into biodiversity databases. A need to develop better predictive capacity for how species respond to environmental change has in part motivated this focus. Functional traits are of most interest—those with a defined link to individual survival, development, growth and reproduction.Non‐trivial challenges arise immediately in deciding which functional traits to prioritise and how to characterise them. Here we discuss the advantages of a theoretical perspective for defining functional traits in the context of dynamical systems models of energy and mass exchange that link organisms to their environments. We argue that the theoretical frameworks upon which such models are built (biophysical ecology, metabolic theory) provide clear criteria to decide upon functional trait definitions, measurement requirements and associated metadata, via their mathematical connection to model parameters and state variables, and thus to system performance (survival, development, growth and reproduction).We distinguish ‘descriptive’ traits from ‘functional’ traits by dividing the latter into four classes—parameter, model, threshold and estimation—according to whether they are model parameters, define model structure, are threshold state variables or can be used to estimate model parameters.We develop a decision tree for this classification and illustrate it in the context of mammalian heat exchange but emphasise the scheme's generality to any kind of organism.We show how a theoretical perspective may change how we prioritise traits for collection and databasing in ways that are not necessarily more difficult to achieve, especially with new technologies, and provide clear guidance for requisite metadata. The use of theoretically driven criteria for prioritising the collection of functional trait data will maximise the generality, quality and consistency of trait databases for comparative analyses. Such databases will simultaneously facilitate the development of integrated predictive modelling frameworks across multiple organisational scales from individuals to ecosystems.​A freePlain Language Summarycan be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Using Biophysical Models to Improve Survey Efficiency for Cryptic Ectotherms

ABSTRACTInefficiencies in monitoring programs waste resources. Ideally, we would predict when and where target species are most detectable and place our effort accordingly. Statistical models can generate predictor functions relating survey conditions to detectability but are phenomenological; they do not incorporate biological constraints and so using them to predict into unsampled time and space is risky. Biophysical ecology allows us to place constraints on detection by identifying abiotic conditions in which the target species cannot be present. We show how such constraint can be incorporated into standard detection models. We use the striped legless lizard (Delma impar), a threatened cryptic species, in southeastern Australia, as a case study, using fortnightly monitoring data collected between June 2016 to May 2017. These lizards are monitored by searching under tiles placed in arrays; we used a biophysical model to simulate the thermal microclimate under tiles and combined this with the striped legless lizard's thermal physiology to predict when tiles could be used. When compared against a large monitoring dataset, lizards were rarely observed at times the model predicted they should not be present, but the model also over‐predicted presences. A statistical occupancy model showed that much of this over‐prediction is explained by a generally low detection probability, and a seasonal trend in detection beyond that captured in the biophysical model. We then replaced the temperature covariates of detection in the statistical model with our biophysical prediction (a categorical variable). The resulting model explained almost the same amount of variance in detections as the original model but using a single variable that captured biological constraints. The biophysical model allowed us to place mechanistic constraints on detection, but it still needed to be informed by observed aspects of the species' behavior that were not influenced by temperature. Hybrid statistical‐biophysical models such as ours offer a powerful tool for forecasting optimal survey conditions for a wide array of species. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

HEAVY METALS INFLUENCE ON THE CTENOPHORES MNEMIOPSIS LEIDYI AND BEROE OVATA BIOLUMINESCENCE

Investigations were conducted in the Department of biophysical ecology of Kovalevsky IMBR of RAS in September - October of 2013 and 2015. The body length of the gathered for experiments ctenophores was 35 – 40 mm. Characteristics of the ctenophores light emission were studied under the mechanical and chemical stimulations, with the usage of laboratory complex “Svet”. The following HM salts: Cu2S04, ZnCl2, PbCl2 and HgCl2 in different concentrations were used in our experiments. The just-caught samples, contained in the clean marine water were used as a control. The exposition time was 1, 3 and 24 hours under the temperature of 21 ± 2°C. The investigations results have shown considerable variability of the ctenophore luminosity characteristics in dependence of metal concentration and exposition duration. It was stated that minimal concentrations of cooper, zinc and mercury stimulates ctenophores bioluminescence and the high ones inhibit. The alien ctenophore luminescence inhibition was registered under the lead activity under all investigated concentrations. We can place investigated metals as following: Zn < Cu < Hg < Pb, according to the force of the toxic influence on the ctenophore bioluminescence. Thus, alien ctenophore bioluminescence parameters can serve as a sensitive express-indicator of the resistance degree to the heavy metals impact and be the expressive index of the marine environment regional pollution.

Incorporating biophysical ecology into high‐resolution restoration targets: insect pollinator habitat suitability models

Species distribution models can be informative of the biodiversity impacts of changing environments at global, national, and regional scales, but are often constrained in their resolution to extents not relevant to individual, intensive ecological management programs. We constructed a high‐resolution topoclimatic model of spring and summer temperatures across a 152 km2 restoration area on the Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, and used it to project energetic expenditure and habitat suitability estimates for four major hymenopteran pollinators. For all species, the most heavily modified landscapes were the least suitable, but only for one species, Zapsilothynnus nigripes, was there evidence that the upper thermal tolerance threshold was exceeded broadly. However, at the higher environmental temperatures that we modeled, some species would need to forage up to 10 times their own body mass every hour to meet their energetic requirements. It seems unlikely that the nutritional requirements of most insect pollinators operating at these higher metabolic rates could be met in an impoverished restoration ecosystem, although resource availability remains to be quantified in these habitats. Hence, to increase the likelihood of restoration success by restoring insect pollination networks, nutritional resources may need to be increased during restoration. Accounting for the way that thermoenergetic requirements shape ecological interactions better positions management trajectories aimed at restoring and maintaining key insect pollinators in “novel” ecosystems.

An estimate of the water budget for the endangered night parrot of Australia under recent and future climates

Endangered species management must now incorporate the potential effects of climate change, but this is often in the context of limited data. The endangered night parrot was recently rediscovered in the Australian arid zone and a major effort is underway to ensure its survival. A key question is to what extent it is dependent on standing water under current and future climates, as this has major implications for understanding and managing its habitat requirements. However, very little is known about its ecology and physiology, and its conservation status precludes invasive ecophysiological studies. Here we show how the methods of biophysical ecology permit strong inferences about this problem with minimal data. We developed a biophysical model of both the parrot and its habitat at the site of its rediscovery. We used allometrically-adjusted observations of the known physiology of a closely related desert-adapted Australian parrot, the budgerigar, to infer unknown aspects of the night parrot’s physiological responses, together with plumage measurements from museum specimens. We tested the microclimate model against empirical data on microhabitat temperatures and compared the endotherm model predictions against an infra-red thermograph of the bird itself. We then used the model to predict the frequency with which the parrot would need to find standing water under current and future climates depending on the water content of its food. Our field data show that air temperature in night parrot roosts during high summer typically exceeds the inferred resting core temperature (38 °C) and can exceed 45 °C. Our calculations imply that night parrots can persist on dry seed during winter conditions without exceeding dangerous levels of dehydration, but would need access to water or succulent (55% water) food during summer. Air temperature at the site is projected to increase 3 °C by 2070, which would lead to likely lethal (22% of body mass) levels of daily dehydration in some years even on succulent food, and would dramatically increase its dependence on standing water. Our findings have significant implications for the conservation management of the night parrot and provide guidance for future research priorities.

Retraction: ‘Lizards could be warming faster than climate’ by Ferri‐Yañez, F. and Araújo, M. B

EcographyVolume 42, Issue 4 p. 845-845 RetractionFree Access Retraction: ‘Lizards could be warming faster than climate’ by Ferri-Yañez, F. and Araújo, M. B Correction(s) for this article Retracted: Lizards could be warming faster than climate Francisco Ferri-Yáñez, Miguel B. Araújo, Volume 38Issue 5Ecography pages: 437-439 First Published online: February 6, 2015 First published: 08 August 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.02001AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL The above article, published online on 6th of February 2015 in Wiley Online Library (www.wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Deputy-Editor in Chief Nate Sanders, the Nordic Society Oikos and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. The retraction has been agreed for the following reasons: an error of parameterization affected the results and therefore invalidated the broad-scale conclusions presented in the article. The article concluded that the operative temperature of a model lizard in the Iberian Peninsula should have increased 0.7°C more than air temperature during 1955–2000. Unfortunately, there was an error in the calculation of operative temperatures. Radiative conductance of the animal was calculated using air temperature (as in Bakken and Gates 1975, Campbell and Norman 1998, and Sears et al. 2011). However, instead of air temperature, Porter et al. (1973) and Bakken (1985) used body temperature. Using body temperature is more appropriate because the amount of thermal radiation emitted by a body is dependent on its temperature according to the Planck's law. The authors tested if changing air temperature to skin temperature in the calculation of operative temperature changed the conclusions. It was found that when operative temperatures were calculated with body temperature it did not increase at a higher rate than air temperature, thus invalidating the conclusions in the study. Following the identification of the error in parameterization, the authors requested the retraction of the article. The authors and the editorial board of Ecography thank Professors Michael Kearney, Raymond Huey, and Warren Porter for bringing the issue to their attention. References BakkenG. S. GatesD. M. 1975. Heat transfer analysis of animals: some implications for field ecology, physiology, and evolution. – In: Perspectives of biophysical ecology. Ecological Studies. Springer, pp. 255–290. BakkenG. S. 1985. Operative and standard operative temperature: tools for thermal energetics studies. – Am. Zool. 25: 933–943. CampbellG. S. NormanJ. M. 1998. Introduction to environmental biophysics. – Springer. PorterW. P. et al. 1973. Behavioral implications of mechanistic ecology. Thermal and behavioral modelling of desert ectotherms. – Oecologia 13: 1–54. SearsM. W. et al. 2011. The world is not flat: defining relevant thermal landscapes in the context of climate change. – Integr. Comp. Biol. 51: 666–675. Volume42, Issue4April 2019Pages 845-845 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Predicting biological invasions in marine habitats through eco‐physiological mechanistic models: a case study with the bivalve Brachidontes pharaonis

AbstractAimWe used a coupled biophysical ecology (BE)‐physiological mechanistic modelling approach based on the Dynamic Energy Budget theory (DEB, Dynamic energy budget theory for metabolic organisation, 2010, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; DEB) to generate spatially explicit predictions of physiological performance (maximal size and reproductive output) for the invasive mussel, Brachidontes pharaonis.LocationWe examined 26 sites throughout the central Mediterranean Sea.MethodsWe ran models under subtidal and intertidal conditions; hourly weather and water temperature data were obtained from the Italian Buoy Network, and monthly CHL‐a data were obtained from satellite imagery.ResultsMechanistic analysis of the B. pharaonis fundamental niche shows that subtidal sites in the Central Mediterranean are generally suitable for this invasive bivalve but that intertidal habitats appear to serve as genetic sinks.Main conclusionsA BE‐DEB approach enabled an assessment of how the physical environment affects the potential distribution of B. pharaonis. Combined with models of larval dispersal, this approach can provide estimates of the likelihood that an invasive species will become established.

Balancing heat, water and nutrients under environmental change: a thermodynamic niche framework

Summary Models of the regulatory behaviour of organisms are fundamental to a strong physiologically‐based understanding of species' responses to global environmental change. Biophysical models of heat and water exchange in organisms (biophysical ecology) and nutritionally‐explicit models for understanding feeding behaviour and its fitness consequences (the Geometric Framework of nutrition, GF) are providing such an underpinning. However, temperature, water and nutrition interact in fundamental ways in influencing the responses of the organism to their environment, and a priority is to develop an integrated approach for conceptualising and measuring these interactions. Ideally, such an approach would be based on a thermodynamically‐formalized energy and mass budgeting approach that is sparsely parameterised and sufficiently general to apply across a range of situations and organisms. Here we illustrate how mass‐balance aspects of Dynamic Energy Budget theory can be applied to obtain first‐principles estimates of fluxes of O2, CO2, H2O and nitrogenous waste. Then, using an herbivorous lizard (Egernia cunninghami) as a case study, we demonstrate how these estimates can be integrated with heat/water exchange models and environmental data to provide a holistic understanding of how foraging strategy, food availability, habitat and weather interact with heat, water and nutrient/energy budgets across the life‐cycle. The analysis shows the potential importance of the water balance in affecting the energy budgets of ‘ dry skinned’ ectotherms, especially early in ontogeny, and highlights a significant gap in our knowledge of the physiological and behavioural traits that affect water balance when compared with our knowledge of thermal traits. In general, the modelling approach we describe can provide the thermodynamically‐constrained stage on which other evolutionary and ecological interactions play out; the ‘thermodynamic niche’. This in turn provides a solid foundation from which to tackle key questions about organismal responses to environmental change.

The World Is not Flat: Defining Relevant Thermal Landscapes in the Context of Climate Change

Although climates are rapidly changing on a global scale, these changes cannot easily be extrapolated to the local scales experienced by organisms. In fact, such generalizations might be quite problematic. For instance, models used to predict shifts in the ranges of species during climate change rarely incorporate data resolved to <1 km(2), although most organisms integrate climatic drivers at much smaller scales. Empirical studies alone suggest that the operative temperatures of many organisms vary by as much as 10-20 °C on a local scale, depending on vegetation, geology, and topography. Furthermore, this variation in abiotic factors ignores thermoregulatory behaviors that many animals use to balance heat loads. Through a set of simulations, we demonstrate how variability in elevational topography can attenuate the effects of warming climates. These simulations suggest that changing climates do not always impact organisms negatively. Importantly, these simulations involve well-known relationships in biophysical ecology that show how no two organisms experience the same climate in the same way. We suggest that, when coupled with thermoregulatory behavior, variation in topographic features can mask the acute effect of climate change in many cases.

Architectural Continuity Towards Cultural Sustainability in Bodrum

Mediterranean architecture is considered the predecessor of the modern concept of “bioclimatic” sustainable design due to its climate reactive attitude (Coch H. 1996, Vissilia, A.M. 2009). Another aspect which renders it to be associated with the notion of modern sustainability is the employment of recyclable materials such as natural stone and wood. The vernacular architecture of Bodrum peninsula located in southwestern Turkey bears the typical characteristics of Mediterranean architecture. Since the 1970s, Bodrum has been attracting the attention of local and foreign tourists. The “architectural pollution” created by tourism facilities paradoxically devastates the natural and unique architectural characteristics of Bodrum which attract the attention of tourists. In this article, the primary focus will be the residential architecture in Bodrum due to its quite dominant typology among tourism facilities. However, the local building regulations aiming to protect natural values and architectural identity and the sensitive attitudes of some architects about preserving architectural identity and visual ecology can be considered positive aspects with regards to the harmonious architectural development of the region. Visual ecology seems generally more vital than biophysical ecology in terms of sustainable tourism economy, and tourism, is the most important sector in Bodrum. In a touristic region such as Bodrum, cultural and economic sustainability are interrelated. Today, research related to sustainability focuses primarily on energy saving and relevant technological inventions and as a result, issues such as cultural expression, contextual connection, identity formation, local differences and changes do not get their deserved places in the sustainability value setting. This paper aims to detect some clues about the outline of the residential architecture within the context of cultural sustainability in Bodrum in the light of residential architecture samples.

Predicting patterns of stress and mortality in intertidal invertebrates: applications of biophysical ecology in a changing world

Predicting patterns of stress and mortality in intertidal invertebrates: applications of biophysical ecology in a changing world

Predicting patterns of stress and mortality in intertidal invertebrates: applications of biophysical ecology in a changing world

Abstract Background , Questions and Methods Recent studies have emphasized that local and geographic patterns of species distributions can be set by a variety of factors related to weather and climate, including exposure to lethal environmental conditions, indirect effects on consumers and competitors, and sublethal effects of physiological stress on growth and reproduction. Predicting where, when and with what magnitude these impacts are most (and least) likely to occur is imperative if we are to effectively plan for (i.e. adapt to) the effects of climate change.We developed a series of methods for translating patterns of environmental “signals” into organismal responses in intertidal ecosystems. Importantly, “organismal climatologies” – long term patterns of organism temperature measured using in situ biomimetic sensors - show distinct differences from patterns based on environmental temperature (air or water temperature). Similarly, we explored the use of dynamic energy budget models, linked to heat budget models of animal temperature, to examine temporal and spatial patterns of sublethal stress and growth. Results and Conclusions Comparisons of four different metrics of stress- seasonal averages, extreme temperatures, number of “stressful days” (&gt;32°C) and return time of stress events – show that temporal and spatial patterns of sublethal stress do not always track patterns of lethal exposure. In other words, simply knowing average temperature often tells us very little about exposure to extremes and vice versa. These results are consistent with the idea that extreme events can occur during the temporal synchrony of multiple “normal” events- for example low wave splash, extreme low tides and high solar radiation. Results also suggest that the combination of heat budget models with dynamic energy budgets are potentially an effective way to predict spatial patterns of intertidal organisms, but that we still need more physiological data regarding the role of aerial body temperature in driving growth and reproduction.

Modeling Animal Landscapes

There is an increasing need to assess the effects of climate and land-use change on habitat quality, ideally from a mechanistic basis. The symposium "Molecules to Migration: Pressures of Life" at the Fourth International Conference in Africa for Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry, Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, 2008, illustrated how the principles of biophysical ecology can capture the mechanistic links between organisms, climate, and other habitat features. These principles provide spatially explicit assessments of habitat quality from a physiological perspective (i.e., "animal landscapes") that can be validated independently of the data used to derive and parameterize them. The contents of this symposium showcased how the modeling of animal landscapes can be used to assess key issues in applied and theoretical ecology. The presentations included applications to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The rare Arabian oryx on the Arabian Peninsula is used as an example for energetic calculations and their implications for behavior on the landscape.

Physiology and Global Climate Change

The analysis of how physiology affects the distribution and abundance of animals in nature has advanced along with the rest of physiology, finding its origins in the Law of the Minimum (1) and the Law of Tolerance (2). Two seminal advances were the reframing of these laws in terms of not just survival but the capacity of animals to be active (3) and recognizing the need to extend the study of the relevant physiology outside of the laboratory and into free-ranging organisms in nature (4). These advances in turn led to the explicit incorporation of principles of mass and energy exchange between organisms and their environment in nature [since termed biophysical ecology (5)] and of population and evolutionary biology [now termed evolutionary physiology (6, 7)]. Physiological analysis of animal distribution and abundance continues to reinvent itself with the incorporation of molecular, genomic, and systems approaches (8) and now finds a new role as it elucidates the consequences of rapid climate change. These efforts synergize with a growing recognition that rapid evolution in natural populations can occur on ecological timescales and hence affect ecological interactions and community dynamics (9).