Dustin Marshall: Mother-offspring conflicts: Temperature can change selection on offspring size

Professor Dustin Marshall, Australian Research Council Fellow and the Head of the Marine Evolutionary Ecology Research Group / Centre for Geometric Biology at Monash University, discusses with us his recently accepted paper “Temperature-mediated variation in selection on offspring size: a multi-cohort field study.” What is the background to your paper? We know offspring size varies enormously and understanding this variation is a long-standing goal of … Continue reading Dustin Marshall: Mother-offspring conflicts: Temperature can change selection on offspring size

Functional Ecology1 Sep 202123 Aug 2021Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Natalie Oram: how prepared are legumes for climate change?

In our latest post, Natalie Oram recalls her work at the Wageningen University ‘Plant traits of grass and legume species for flood resilience and N2O mitigation’, highlights the importance of diverse plant strategies to cope with flood and suggests there is a limit for how much ABBA a person can listen to. It’s raining, it’s pouring Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of … Continue reading Natalie Oram: how prepared are legumes for climate change?

Functional Ecology30 Aug 202123 Aug 2021Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Daniel Kenna: Warming air temperature drives changes in bumblebee flight performance

In this post, Daniel Kenna from Imperial College London’s Silwood Park Campus, explores how bumblebee flight responds to temperature change, discusses what this implies about the effects of climate change on our pollinators, and recounts his experiences in the lab. About the paper Bees’ flight performance affects their ability to pollinate plants, which is a crucial service for many of our crops and garden plants. … Continue reading Daniel Kenna: Warming air temperature drives changes in bumblebee flight performance

Functional Ecology18 Aug 202118 Aug 2021Leave a comment

Zenon Czenze - In the Kalahari with a hot bird (Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill)

Behind the paper

Zenon Czenze: Hot birds -thermoregulation in heat has co-evolved with drinking behaviour

Dr. Zenon Czenze is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pretoria, soon to begin a Lecturer position at the University of New England in Armidale. Here, Dr. Czenze shares his team’s observations that led to the paper “Regularly-drinking desert birds have greater evaporative cooling capacity and higher heat tolerance limits than non-drinking species.”

Functional Ecology30 Apr 202030 Apr 2020Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Øystein Kielland: Phenotypic plasticity in oxygen supply

In this Insight, Dr. Kielland of the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU) discusses his paper “Warm and out of breath: thermal phenotypical plasticity in oxygen supply,” the challenges associated with developing the methods used in the paper, and how his research can be interpreted in the context of increasing temperatures.

Functional Ecology17 Sep 201912 Sep 2019Leave a comment