Tayla Leathers1, Dan A. Smale1, Emma Sheehan2
1Marine Biological Association of the UK, UK - 2University of Plymouth, UK
Kelps function as key foundation species that form diverse and productive forests, which are distributed along 25% of the world’s coastlines. These vital marine ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, particularly ocean warming, which is predicted to intensify in the coming decades. Populations found towards the edges of any given species’ range are generally more responsive to warming compared with range centre populations, and both range contractions and expansions have been commonly observed towards the warmer trailing edge and cooler leading edge, respectively. Other concurrent stressors, such as decreasing coastal water quality and overgrazing by sea urchin and fish, have also driven losses of kelp forests at local to regional scales.
One potential approach to combat loss of kelp forests is habitat restoration, which has proved successful in facilitating recovery in some kelp ecosystems, although efforts must consider projections of further warming which will continue assert thermal stress. This research will explore the potential of using thermal priming as a strategy to enhance thermal tolerance and subsequently ‘future-proof’ kelp restoration efforts. Priming is a technique often used in terrestrial agriculture, whereby seeds are exposed to a stress to improve resistance and performance of the desired crop.
Kelp gametophytes collected from range edge and range centre populations will be pre-exposed to elevated temperatures and differences in their survival and development will be assessed. The ability of the gametophytes to produce resilient sporophytes will be examined. Primed and non-primed sporophytes will undergo thermal tolerance experiments to evaluate whether thermal priming has positive effects on offspring survival and performance in kelp.
This study will highlight the potential importance of integrating thermal priming techniques in future kelp restoration to enhance efforts and mitigate impact of ocean warming and other concurrent stressors.
Biography
Tayla is a PhD student at the Marine Biological Association and The University of Plymouth. Her PhD involves the development of techniques to ‘futureproof’ kelp restoration and look into the impact this may have on UK marine biodiversity. This will involve thermal priming of gametophytes to investigate the effect this has on subsequent sporophytes. She has previous experience focusing on thermal tolerance of habitat forming species and their responses to simulated marine heatwaves.